


Leaving Time

by JaneDavitt



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alien Flora & Fauna, Aliens, Collars, Dark, First Time, M/M, Minor Character Death, Rituals, Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-24
Updated: 2010-03-24
Packaged: 2017-10-08 07:24:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/74124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneDavitt/pseuds/JaneDavitt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mission goes wrong, leaving Daniel dying and Jack ready to do anything to save him, no matter what the consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leaving Time

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Alli, my wonderful beta reader.

When he finds him, Daniel's wearing a collar. Seeing it dark and tight around the grubby, bruised neck makes Jack cold inside, closes his ears momentarily, blinds his eyes. He breathes out slowly and hooks his fingers inside it to find the fastening.

Daniel screams, as high and loud as he can, given the state of his throat. It's a cracked whimper of a cry that hurts to hear. Jack's fingers slip free and he rubs them clean on his leg against the mud-encrusted fabric, frantically trying to scrub off the hideous twitch and slither and squeeze.

"What the hell is that?" he asks, revulsion choking him. Looks like leather, utilitarian and brown, rough-edged and primitive but it _moved_.

Daniel rocks out of his crouch to kneel, sitting back on his heels and brushing the dirt from his palms. His eyes focus and he blinks. "Jack?"

"Yeah." Jack kneels in filth and reaches out his hand. It hangs, irresolute, as he tries to find a safe place to pat Daniel and then falls to his side. He's already told Daniel it's him, already given him water, but Daniel doesn't seem able to hold onto it, any of it. "You knew we wouldn't leave you, right? Knew we'd come back..."

"Knew you'd come back..." Daniel echoes doubtfully.

Jack grits his teeth and rests his hand with infinite care on Daniel's shoulder, placing his finger just so and making sure he doesn't press down on raw, grazed skin, showing red through the faded, torn cloth. "We came as soon as possible after the Shalin dropped out of touch. Had to gate to the next planet over and come here by Tok'ra ship, but we've got people working on unburying the 'gate in the village; you'll be home tonight, I promise you."

"It took us a long time to bury it," Daniel says, his hands flexing as if they're clutching a shovel. Blisters crack and clear liquid makes snail tracks through the dirt painting his palms brown and grey.

"They made you --?" Jack bites off the words. "Yeah, guess they would."

Daniel nods and doesn't stop, his head bobbing up and down, impelled by an exhaustion deep enough that the effort of moving is less than the will needed to stop. Jack's hand cups his face and stills the movement. "It's going to be okay, Daniel."

Stone-dry, tear-empty eyes stare up at him.

"Really." Jack's talking for both of them now, wondering where the hell Carter and Teal'c are, and then knowing he doesn't want them to see Daniel like this. "Get you cleaned up, get you back; let Janet fix you up... get that thing off you..." He screws up his nose, glad of the chance to do it without hurting Daniel's feelings. The man stinks; organic odours of piss and shit and sweat. Jack's brain is screaming at him to run, kill, hide, all kinds of memories stirred up in the first sniff of the air inside Daniel's cage. He stares at the collar. "What's it made of?"

Daniel doesn't touch the collar. Jack's used to watching Daniel's fingers absently caress what he's describing, but he doesn't miss that habit now.

"It's flesh from a lindess tree."

Jack waits, puzzled, but Daniel's finished talking as if he's said enough. He offers Daniel some more water, holding the canteen to the split, dried lips, and waits until Daniel's swallowed five, six times before he takes the canteen away, hating how easy it is to fend off Daniel's clutching fingers. "Take it slow, huh? Don't want you throwing it back up again."

Daniel stares at him as if he hates him.

"Want me to cut it off? The collar?"

"No! Nonononono..." The words chatter out in a panicked rush and lose their meaning half way through for both of them.

"Easy!" Jack's hands fit snugly around Daniel's wrists and hold him in place. "Daniel, tell me why you don't want that fucking thing off you."

"You'll kill it." Daniel's shivering now, convulsive shudders that crawl over his skin like spiders.

"What?" Jack stares at it. "It's alive?" He's seen too much weirdness to be entirely disbelieving, especially since he remembers the way it moved against his skin.

Daniel gives a jerk of his head that Jack takes for assent.

"Okay. So we kill it. I've got no problems with that."

None. Zero. Jack's still coming down from the fight. His skin is slicked with sweat and his face splattered with blood, dried and flaking; it itches but he doesn't care.

Not his blood, after all.

Daniel turns around, hunches over, and very carefully splits the shaggy fall of hair at the back of his neck with his hands.

Jack edges closer and peers at the collar where it presses against the nape of Daniel's neck. In the dimness of the hut, it takes him a moment to work out what he's looking at, and when he does, he turns his head and spits out sourness, stomach heaving.

"God..."

How deep the tendrils go inside Daniel's body, he doesn't know. Enough that they're piercing the once smooth skin, blood black and crusted around the entrance wounds. Enough that Daniel's doubly bound by the thing.

"What the fuck _is_ it?"

Daniel turns back, so that he's close, too close, and Jack can't stop the instinctive recoil. Daniel reaches out and snatches the canteen off him, gulping at it, cradling it to him. Jack knows that's something that's going to be left behind. No way could he ever drink from it again.

"It's part of a sentient tree." Daniel lowers the canteen and gives Jack a look that's still vaguely hostile. "The Shalin shape the branches when they fall and they retain a connection to the mother tree until it dies. The resultant artwork is fascinating; some of it is centuries old and still living, changing subtly... " The crisp, swift explanation falters to a drawl, as if Daniel's clockwork-driven now, winding down. He plucks at the torn, stiff jacket he's wearing. "Dirty. Do you think they'll let me requisition another?"

"Yeah," Jack says. "It's a write-off."

"I think it is," Daniel says seriously, as if the loss of a uniform matters when he's got a fucking alien life form screwing his brains up.

"So what do they do with this tree? They make wicker baskets out of it, or something?"

Daniel snickers. "Noooo. Just basket cases."

Jack glances toward the door, ignoring Daniel's breathless, gasped giggles. "Daniel; this place stinks and I can't see you. Want to get the hell out of here and let me torch the place?"

Daniel bites his lip to silence himself, his teeth fitting neatly into already dented skin. "Out?"

"Yeah. Out." Jack goes to the door and looks around. The smoke from the fighting and the fires hangs over the village in wisps of grey, tainting the fresh air he's sucking gratefully into his lungs. He can't see anyone alive in sight. He'd told Carter and Teal'c to join him once they'd overseen the start of the digging -- with a jolt, he realises that they've only been gone a short while. It feels as if he's been inside that cramped hovel for an hour.

He goes back to Daniel and takes his hand. "Come on. No one's out there. It's safe."

There's something inside that's telling him Daniel needs shielding, shouldn't be seen like this. It's the instinct of a child covering for an alcoholic mother. No one's going to look at Daniel with pity or disgust. No one.

Daniel leaves the hut readily enough and Jack leads him across to the shallow river on the eastern side of the village. He's got spare clothes in his pack; no spare boots, but Daniel's been going barefoot for a while by the look of it. They can strip him down, wash him, scour off some of the dirt. Daniel's moving like he's still trapped in a space too small to stretch out in. His skin's peppered with contusions and scars, but Jack can't see anything that would make a wash a bad idea.

Unless that fucking tree around his neck doesn't like getting wet.

They've been walking past bodies without Daniel reacting but he pauses at one, his gaze scanning the twisted, limp corpse curiously.

"What?" Jack asks. This was one of his kills. He remembers it. Bullets sewing a red thread across the man's chest and a sword swinging up from nowhere as Jack got closer...

"It's Sacer," Daniel says.

... the hilt of the sword warm in Jack's hand as he took it out of a loose grip and --

"Didn't he have a head?" Daniel turns a puzzled look on Jack. "I think he had a head." Dull eyes brighten as Jack nods silently at a brownish lump a few yards away, stripped of personality by death. "Oh, right. There it is."

Jack swallows. "Yeah. I didn't mean to --"

"He's the one who put the collar on me," Daniel says dreamily. Jack feels some of his guilt slip away, replaced by a sour sting of hate towards the dead man. He tries to ignore both emotions; not important right now. "They're loose at first, you know, wet with sap, and then they tighten as they dry. If they aren't the right size they strangle you slowly."

Jack's hand tightens on Daniel's sleeve but he doesn't trust himself to reply.

"That's how Alice died," Daniel carries on. "She was in the cage next to me and she was choking and gasping and begging Sacer to cut it off her. It took a long time for her to die and I could feel my collar getting tighter and tighter, squeezing my neck, cracking my bones until the blood gushed out and I drowned."

"That wasn't you," Jack says urgently, shaking Daniel until he stops droning out the details of Alice Stewart's death. Jack remembers her in the gateroom; blonde, with short, wispy hair tied in a knot on top of her head, blue eyes snapping with excitement because she was off to another planet; one of Daniel's fellow geeks.

"Will of the gods," Daniel mutters. "Why is it always the will of the gods? Why can't they just admit that they're sadists with a disturbing knack for torture and an inability to measure?"

That sounds promising. Anger, spiced with spite. Jack's all for encouraging that.

They make it to the river with Daniel still muttering imprecations against Sacer and Jack nodding agreement, Daniel's weight numbing his arm. Jack's feeling optimistic. He's found Daniel, and even if he's the only survivor from the six who were taken, even though he's got a fucking twig rammed into his skull, well, he's alive, sane enough to be sarcastic, and apart from Benson cracking his wrist, the rescuers have suffered no injuries.

_Fraiser'll get it off him _ Jack thinks. _ Or Thor, or the Tok'ra, or Carter. Between 'em, they can do just about anything. Shit, we can spray it with weed killer if it comes to that._

Daniel stares at the water and then at Jack.

"Daniel -- one friend to another; you stink." Jack shrugs out of his pack and rummages through it, bringing out a folded set of BDU's and a pair of socks. He tosses a small bottle of liquid soap in the air and catches it. "Get in, get the worst of it off, and then use this," he says, keeping his voice light and impersonal.

Daniel starts to undress, his movement hesitant, averting his face. It's not shyness --God knows they've showered side by side often enough -- but shame, Jack realises. Daniel doesn't want him to see --

Oh _God_.

The last of the rags fall to the ground and Daniel takes an unsteady step forward and then stumbles. Jack watches him start to fall, shocked into immobility. Daniel goes down on one knee, steadies himself with a hand and then starts to haul himself upright, teeth gritted, holding back a moan of pain.

"Shit --" Jack goes to him and helps him up, yanks him up, dragging Daniel to his feet and running his hands over the skin that's covering a skeleton that's subtly not right. Too much of it, too many bumps and protrusions.

"Am I beautiful?" Daniel asks him, his eyes blue again under the sky. "He said I would be. Said it was a pity criminals were never exhibited because I'd be much admired."

Jack wishes he wasn't working this out so quickly.

"Not wicker baskets."

Daniel's head is cradled against Jack's arm, his body cool and oddly weighted. Too little flesh, too much --

"No. Just me."

Hollows and dips and sunken, shrinking, stretching skin... Daniel sucked dry, changing...

"What will -- how will it end?"

Hardest question he's ever had to ask but Daniel just shrugs, easing out of Jack's grip and walking toward the water.

"I won't die from it," Daniel says. "Not all the way. You'll have to kill me. Promise you will?" The sunlight scatters across the water and dazzles Jack's eyes so that all he sees is Daniel, naked and smiling at him, serenely confident that Jack'll agree. Then the water swallows him up and Jack blinks away the sting of tears and slides his sunglasses on.

By the time Daniel's dressed, matted hair slicked back, body mercifully shrouded, Jack's starting to wish he had more people to kill.

"They said you were being held," he tells Daniel. "Unharmed and held, pending an investigation."

The ponderous, measured tones of the Shalin ambassador had left Jack on edge. Hammond had remained calm, arguing for a release, pleading the case of Daniel's team -- what was left of it. The deaths of the marines sent to guard the archeologists were already dealt with, the four men buried with words like 'regrettable', 'unfortunate', 'tragic misunderstanding' carved on their gravestones.

"We were," Daniel says dryly. "The investigation just didn't take as long as they told you." He's walking with confidence now, as if the wash and fresh clothes have helped, biting hungrily at an energy bar Jack's found, crumbling and squashed, in his pocket. "They really don't care about lying. Not after what we did."

Jack halts Daniel with a hand on his arm. "Just what did you do, Daniel? Any of you? What the fuck could you do to deserve this?"

Daniel stares at the woods where Carter and Teal'c can be seen hurrying along a narrow track. "We forgot that this isn't Earth, Jack. We broke the rules."

"Yeah, well, we do that sort of thing all the fucking time," Jack snaps.

"Yes, we do," Daniel agrees, starting to walk again, angling away from his approaching friends. He pauses by a tree growing out of a heap of rocks. "But we don't get away with murder," Daniel says, studying it dispassionately as Carter and Teal'c approach. "Sacer liked this one, but he said Simon struggled too much at the end. The best results are when you let the tree have control of your final shape, but not many people can do that. It hurts quite a lot, you see. He hoped I'd be braver than Simon was and I said I'd try."

Simon? Oh, God.

Sickness takes Jack, twisting his gut until he thinks he might actually puke. That hasn't happened to him in years, but the tree's swaying without a breeze, the rustle of its leaves a sibilant scream, and if Daniel's going to be like that soon --

Carter's eyes are wide and anxious, her hand on Daniel's arm, Teal'c's impassive face lit by a small smile that fades fast, but they're all close enough to touch now, the team in one place again.

"Daniel?" Carter sounds freaked and concerned and Jack realises she's heard what Daniel had said. "What are you talking about?"

Teal'c does what Jack couldn't have, not ever, and rests his hand against the bark of the tree. "I believe Daniel Jackson is telling us that this was once a member of his team, Major Carter." He sounds shaken out of his customary composure. "Although I do not know how this has been done, or the purpose of it."

"It's done as both a punishment and a privilege," Daniel says. "Those who volunteer are greatly honoured. They create a living blend between the two dominant life forms on the planet, you see."

"No," Carter says, shaking her head violently. "I don't see. How can it be a punishment if it's an honour?"

Daniel smiles as Teal'c snatches his fingers back as the tree shrieks at him, woken and angry. "The ones who blend are allowed to forget. Absorbed entirely. Gifted with wisdom and immortal. The others -- the tree takes from them and gains strength from their life force, but gives nothing back." The intent furrow between Daniel's eyebrows deepens. "They remember who they were. It's why they scream like that. It's forbidden to look at the punishment trees; they're taboo, but Sacer told me that he's heard music made from the sounds they make and that it was.." Daniel's lips pout as he tries to remember. "Compelling and eerily complex," he says finally with a nod.

He starts to walk away. "If you set fire to it, I think that will work," he calls back over his shoulder. "For Simon's sake, I hope you can find a quicker way to kill him, though."

***

By the time the 'gate's been disinterred, Jack's managed to piss off everyone within reach, snapping out orders that Carter quietly counters with impeccable reasons why that's not such a good idea, sir, no, really, if you set fire to the village, well, it could spread to the forest and --

He's not listening and as he stares at her uncomprehendingly, Teal'c tugs him away to the side.

"O'Neill."

"Yeah?" Jack rubs at his eyes. He's been awake for a long time now and he's starting to feel the effects. Hasn't slept well since Daniel went missing.

"The Tok'ra vessel has returned from its sweep of the city."

"Well?"

Teal'c shakes his head.

"No one left?" Jack's not sure of the numbers involved; this isn't one of the industrialised worlds, densely populated like Earth, but he recalls a report speculating that the main city had housed a few hundred thousand people.

"No human survivors," Teal'c says carefully. "It seems that the Lindess are unaffected but as we have no way of communicating with them --"

Jack smiles tightly. "Give me an axe," he says. "I bet I can get a dialogue going in no time."

The corners of Teal'c's mouth turn down. "I do not believe that would be wise, O'Neill. General Hammond has instructed us to be diplomatic."

"He didn't know what they'd done to Daniel and his team when he said that," Jack says.

Teal'c nods. "That is so. However, I do not think he would approve of --"

"It was a _joke_, Teal'c!" Jack snaps. It wasn't.

"There is nothing amusing in this," Teal'c says heavily. His gaze travels to where Daniel sits cross-legged, staring at what's left of Simon Foster. "Has Daniel Jackson spoken of what transpired here?"

Jack sighs. "Little bit. Not much. He keeps... drifting away. He'll be talking fast, the way he does, and then he just loses it. I'm not sure how reliable he is."

Carter joins them, her face pale and smudged with ash and dirt. "The Stargate's in place, sir. I've run some tests and it seems to be working."

"That's good," Jack says, giving her a vague smile she doesn't return. "Dial home and I'll talk to General Hammond."

"Sir? We're not leaving?"

"Oh, I want to, Carter," Jack tells her. "But as we still haven't found the rest of Daniel's team --"

Carter swallows. "We've -- we've found some bodies, sir."

"Oh?" Jack's fingers drum against his rifle. "Tell me more, Carter."

"Three bodies, sir, buried in a shallow grave just inside the forest. Doctors Simcoe, Franklin and Sheldon. All apparently dead of strangulation. The collars are gone but their necks are marked. They've been placed in body bags and taken to the 'gate."

Jack nods acknowledgement of that, wondering if it's safe to take the bodies through, knowing he won't leave them behind. "And we know where Daniel and Simon are, so that leaves one person missing," he says.

"Doctor Julia Talbot," Teal'c supplies.

"She's like Simon," Jack says, hearing the bitterness in his words. "Daniel just doesn't know where she is." He stares at the trees pressing around the small clearing of the village. "Yeah. Needle: welcome to the haystack."

"God," Carter says, looking away for a moment and then staring down at the ground. "Sir -- how long does Daniel have?"

"He says he was collared last because they were using him to translate the writing in that ruin he found. Maybe a day. Don't count on it, though."

"Sir, we have to get him help!" Carter's face is tense with barely controlled anxiety, the bones sharp under her skin. Clean, straight bones. Daniel's features are already shifting out of true so that Jack can't look at him without squinting, trying to bring him into focus. "Maybe some form of stasis, something to slow down the transformation... "

Daniel joins them, scattering the tight circle they've formed. His skin is darkening and there's something not right about the way he moves, something that's bringing every inchoate fear buried deep in Jack's head to the surface. "There's nothing you can do, Sam. The Lindess won't permit it."

"Daniel?" Sam touches his arm lightly. "We still don't know what happened? Only what the Shalin told us you'd done, and they really weren't specific, and then they buried the 'gate --"

Daniel sinks to the ground, scratching at a scab on his arm and peeling it back. The blood that pops up in bright beads is still red. That's good, Jack thinks as he squats beside Daniel, joined by the others. Red blood. Human blood.

"We'd come to investigate the ruins," Daniel says. "We didn't know the village even existed." He looks pensive. "We send a MALP through, or a glider, and we think we know a planet. It's laughable."

"It's the best we can do," Jack says harshly. "Go on."

"The writing on the walls was in Ancient, as you know. No sign of any Goa'uld activity and we weren't approached on the first day." Daniel's face is settling into peaceful lines. "It was fascinating; a real challenge to translate and the others were finding all sorts of artifacts..."

"Then night time came and you --"

"Lit a fire, yes." Daniel shrugs, spreading his hands wide. "Most of the wood was just that, but the marines had gathered some from a lindess tree and when it burned..."

His eyes widen and Jack sees him start to slip away. "Hey! No losing it, Daniel! You've got to tell us."

"The forest screamed," Daniel mutters. "The mother tree first, and then it spread... Before we knew what was happening, Sacer and the other villagers were surrounding us, holding pointed sticks..." His hand traces a line in the air. "They held them out and let them go and they flew..." He slams his hand hard into his chest. "Thud." He frowns. "Thunk? It was a weird sound." He hits himself again, experimenting. "No, that's not quite right."

"The sound is not important, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c says softly.

"No?" Daniel glances at them and then nods agreeably. "They killed the marines but they didn't kill my team. I think it was because they weren't armed, but I was and they left me alone, too, so I don't -- Sacer told me later that they'd been watching us at the ruins and heard me translating. They can't read Ancient, you see, and neither can the Lindess. They were interested. Really interested."

"So when they told us you'd murdered someone, they were talking about a fucking _tree_?" Jack demands. "About burning a dead branch?"

Carter clears her throat. "A sentient life form, sir, and the branch wasn't exactly dead."

"No," Daniel agrees, "it wasn't. A shed branch doesn't die; it sends out roots and forms a new tree. That's very rare, though; they're usually gathered up and merged with a human."

"How do they know one's been shed?" Carter asks, curiosity letting her ask questions Jack doesn't want to think about. "The Shalin, I mean?"

"The merged trees communicate with them," Daniel says matter-of-factly. "All the trees are connected to a certain extent, including the ones that are drawing upon a human's life force. Some of the unmerged Shalin -- like Sacer -- have the ability to receive messages."

"Telepathy?" Carter asks.

"In a limited way," Daniel says. He nods. "That's about it; we came, we killed, we were punished." He drags his finger through the dirt leaving aimless squiggles and curves behind, humming to himself.

Jack exchanges glances with Carter and Teal'c. "Daniel -- you know we killed the people holding you."

"Yes..." Daniel doesn't even look up. "I saw the bodies."

"We didn't plan on doing that." Jack winces just thinking about Hammond's probable reaction. "In fact, we were told we had to get you all back without any... unpleasantness."

Teal'c clears his throat. "They were insane, O'Neill. It was unavoidable."

"Yeah, they were acting kinda nuts," Jack says, remembering a blade slashing at him and blank, dead eyes. He touches the dry, hot skin of Daniel's face, getting his attention. "They're all dead, Daniel. Whole planet, as far as we can make out. Some kind of plague or something. We wanted to talk to them; see what they could do to reverse this, and they're just -- dead."

Daniel peers at him. "Dead?"

"Dead."

"But not the Lindess."

"I don't think so," Jack says irritably. "How the hell do we know? Do their leaves fall off? We don't even know how many of them there are --"

"Two thousand and thirty-three," Daniel says absently. "Not counting me."

"Not --" Jack hisses through his teeth, his temper boiling over. "Daniel -- no, look at me, dammit -- we get that collar off you, what happens?"

Daniel lifts a shoulder in a shrug. "I don't know. I'll die?"

"Assume we can do it without killing you."

"How should I know?" Daniel asks reasonably.

"How did you know how many Lindess there are?" Teal'c asks.

Daniel twists his head sharply. "Good question," he says, giving Teal'c a bright smile. "I just do."

"But you don't know why the Shalin are dead?" Sam asks.

"He's been locked in a cage I wouldn't keep a rabbit in, Carter," Jack snaps. "How the hell can he know anything? This isn't his fault."

"I'm sorry, sir," Carter says, "but you have to admit that we don't -- this has happened before. We've come to a planet and set events in motion that have --"

"Carter..." Jack says meaningfully. "I don't want to hear it."

"No," Daniel says thoughtfully. "That's probably my fault, too. All of them dying, I mean."

"None of this is your fault, Daniel," Jack says. "You didn't build that fire, and even if you had, you didn't know you were --"

"Burning a baby alive on it?"

Teal'c makes a soft sound in his throat and Carter shudders. Daniel looks at Jack with a patient stubbornness he knows all too fucking well but Jack shakes his head.

"No. That's bullshit, Daniel. And even if it wasn't, four marines died; how much blood do they want?"

"A lindess tree lives for thousands of years, Jack. To match that, a lot of humans would need to die."

"And it still won't bring the tree back," Jack points out. He blinks. "What; are you saying one branch gets toasted and the whole population dies to make up for it?"

Daniel smiles. "No. Sacer seemed to think that we'd be sufficient." His smile fades. "He hated us so much. Loved hurting us. Hurting me. I've never -- hurt..." He starts to tremble, face going slack, curling in on himself.

Jack curses and reaches for him, ignoring the quiver of revulsion as he cradles alien flesh and bone, trying to get to what's left of Daniel to comfort him. The others watch in silence, Carter's face working as she tries to hold back tears. "Daniel..." He looks over Daniel's head. "Carter. Dial up and report in. Tell Hammond what's happened and get him to contact the Asgard; see if they know about these damn trees."

"Won't help..." Daniel murmurs shakily. "No time. Jack -- you promised --"

"I won't kill you, Daniel." Jack pulls back enough to stab a finger at him. "Not yet. We've got a problem, granted, but there's a way around it. You'll see."

"Tell that to the Shalin," Daniel says, and starts to laugh.

***

"Until you find out what caused those deaths, Colonel, I'm afraid I can't allow anyone to come back through the 'gate."

"I understand that, sir." Jack waves his hand irritably at a fly buzzing around the MALP. "Daniel can't, anyway."

"Oh? Why is that?"

"Can't get within twenty feet of the 'gate or the Tok'ra ship without that damn collar choking the life out of him." Jack keeps his face from showing his reaction to the memory of Daniel writhing in the dirt, eyes bugging out, fingers scrabbling at the slowly tightening collar. "It's not going to let him leave."

"Is that something we can work with?" Hammond asks. "Could it be that the... change can only take place there?"

"It's possible, sir," Jack says, "but I don't think he'd survive the trip through the 'gate."

"If he was unconscious?"

"Oh, he was, eventually," Jack says tiredly. "Didn't matter. Until we moved him back a couple of hundred feet, that thing around his neck kept squeezing."

"I see." Hammond falls silent and then says, "Doctor Fraiser is analysing the samples you sent back from Doctor Jackson and the villagers. So far she's been unable to identify what killed the ones who were dead before you arrived, or what's happening to Doctor Jackson."

"Daniel? He's turning into a tree, sir. Right now he's sleeping like a log."

"Jack."

The reproof in Hammond's voice is sharp, tempered with sympathy. Jack knuckles the sting of dust and sun from his eyes. "Sorry, sir. We don't know either. Daniel's the key to this, I swear he is, and he's just not telling us what we need to know."

"Hundreds of thousands of deaths -- his own life at risk?" Hammond sounds determined. "He has to, Colonel. This is a terrible thing to have happened."

"I couldn't agree more, sir."

"I meant the people on the planet as well as our own."

"So did I, sir, so did I." Jack has no problems in sounding sincere; he's truly regretful that no one's left alive to tell him how to fix what's wrong with Daniel. And they would have. He wouldn't have let them refuse. If Daniel can be saved, Jack might even spare a moment of true sorrow for them, but there are too many dead to seem real, and he didn't know them or kill them. Apart from the ones standing between him and Daniel and doing their best to kill _him_. Somehow, he can't feel anything more than an impersonal, pale sympathy for their plight.

Somehow, he thinks Daniel might not share his indifference. Daniel's not helping them. Daniel's not _trying_. Jack's getting angry with Daniel.

"Is there anything, anything at all, we can send you?"

"Time, sir." Jack squints at the sun, already low. "We don't know how much of it we've got. Ask Fraiser if she can think of anything we can do to slow down whatever's happening to Daniel. Buy us a chance to save him."

"That's a tall order when she doesn't know what's happening." Hammond sighs. "I'll tell her. Leave someone here and if she comes up with anything we'll get it to you right away."

"Yes, sir. O'Neill out."

He heads towards Daniel, his boots scuffing up the dust in impatient little puffs.

"Daniel? Want to take a little walk with me?"

He gets them away from the village and carefully avoids the path leading to the 'gate. That just leaves the woods as a destination but it'll do.

"Okay, Daniel. Just you, me, and a lot of potential matchsticks. Now tell me what you did."

Daniel's gaze skips around, jerky little twitches of his head guiding it. He's looking at the trees, Jack realises.

"Any of them -- I mean, they're just trees, right?"

Daniel nods and slides to the ground, leaning back against one. Jack thinks that if Daniel stayed still and someone walked into the small clearing, they'd see only one human. Daniel's clothes aren't hiding the changes now; they're accentuating them. Inside a bag of skin, Daniel's bones are being pushed aside, absorbed, altered. Jack's confused by the peace in Daniel's eyes and slowed down by it. He wants Daniel to panic, to need consoling. He wants something to kill and his target is snug and smug and wrapped around Daniel's neck.

"So talk."

"What do you want me to say?" It's not a flip question, the prelude to one of their ping-pong spats; it's a careful clarification of an order, and Jack wonders if Sacer taught Daniel to be that wary about obeying in a hurry.

Bastard.

"I want -- Daniel, I want you back. I can't do this. Fraiser's having kittens because she can't get at you to run tests; we're all stuck here until we find out why the Shalin died in case we've got it, too --"

"You haven't."

It's the amusement in Daniel's voice that leaves Jack gaping at him in silence. Oh, he _knew_ it. Knew Daniel had done something, pulled a whammy out of a hat.

"Daniel?" He spreads the word out, lilting the syllables and arching his eyebrow. "What did you do?"

"My job," Daniel says primly. "I translated the writing, just like they wanted me to."

"And you what; mixed it up a bit? Changed the words? Missed bits out?"

Daniel just looks at him. Oh. Okay. That's a no-no, is it?

"I told them exactly what it said," Daniel told him. "Everything that the Ancients had written. Everything they needed to know."

Jack eyes him, still convinced that Daniel did something sneaky and smart. "Okay, this is fun, but we're on a clock here and you _know_ how I feel about people being cryptic in emergencies."

"I know how you feel, yes." Daniel stares at his hand. It's moving spasmodically and Jack doesn't think that Daniel can hold it steady any more. "The Ancients came here when the only inhabitants were the Lindess. They accelerated their growth."

"Into gardening, were they?"

"They recognised their potential and their vulnerability." Daniel waves his hand at the forest. "Immobile. Limited in scope -- unless they're linked, and then they're everywhere, Jack, and they can learn from each other and remember, pass it on..."

"There aren't many of them for a whole planet," Jack says. "Couple of thousand after all this time?"

Daniel gives him an approving smile. "Exactly! There's obviously a need for a built-in population control but even so, their numbers are declining."

"So where do -- did -- the Shalin come into it?" Jack's relaxing now. Just like old times; Daniel's lecturing him, earnest voice, eyebrows wiggling, calm and not freaking out. No glasses, though; that's different. He wasn't wearing any when Jack found him, and he told them not to bother sending a spare pair through the 'gate, insisting that he could see without them.

Jack doesn't want to know what Daniel's eyes see now. The blue of them is starting to fade, misted over by brown.

"They're supposed to help the Lindess." Daniel's staring at his hand again, frowning. "Be their protectors until the Lindess are strong enough to take the next step."

"Which would be?"

"The merging is limited," Daniel says. "The Shalin didn't really understand how it works. Art and punishment?" He shakes his head, a flash of arrogance dispelling the calm. "They're all supposed to do it. Get to a certain age, go find a Lindess. They might have done that at the beginning, but not now."

"So they've been cheating?" Jack asks. "Doing the bare minimum, fancying it up with being an honour when the truth is it's the ultimate horror --"

"Yes and no," Daniel says. "It's horrific to you because you can't imagine a change like that and you can't see the benefits, but if the Shalin had done it properly..."

"They'd be the vegetable equivalent of Jaffa!"

"It's not quite the same. They're not really human, you see. That might be what's stopping Janet from making progress." Daniel's twisting his shaking hand from side to side and his voice is slowing. "Jack -- it hurts."

"Daniel..." Jack scrambles over to him, gripping Daniel's wrist. He can feel the heat rising from Daniel's skin, palpable and heavy, pouring off him like scent off cut grass. The thin, tough skin across the back of Daniel's hand is stretched and under it something is crawling and pushing, trying to get out. "Going to get you back, Daniel, make you better..."

He's losing Daniel again. Every shuddered breath takes Daniel away; every garbled mess of words spilling out of the slack lips keeps him there. Jack's left wishing they'd had longer, or he'd wasted less time. Daniel can't fucking do this to him, can't lapse into incoherence just as he was about to tell Jack what he needs to know --

His mouth brushes Daniel's face as he puts his arm around him, trying to lift him. It's not a kiss, but it feels like a betrayal, because he jerks away, sickened by the rough skin that stinks of decay and rot and green.

Daniel turns and he can _see_ him struggling to stay. Chewing down on the inside of his mouth, Jack lays his hand against Daniel's face and keeps it there as he leans in and kisses the wet, desperately working, lips briefly, doing penance. "Tell me, Daniel. They're not human. What are they?"

He draws back, fighting the urge to wipe his mouth clean.

Daniel says very clearly, "Compost," and starts to giggle. He's shaking and trembling and the giggles don't let him breathe but there's nothing left to hear Jack's orders for him to shut the hell up and when Jack hauls him back to the village he's still laughing weakly.

***

Carter takes a deep breath and starts to talk, her words absorbed by the dead, warm air. Jack listens. He always does, even when he tells her to shut up halfway through. She tends to hit the high spots early on and then circle back to add details.

"Janet's sent back a request for a sample from the collar."

"Can't be done, Carter."

"I do not believe the life form will react well to that, Major Carter."

Teal'c's as wordy as Carter in his own way.

She pushes her fingers through the mess of her hair. "No, I know, but I thought we could send some from -- well, just a little, from --"

"Simon Foster?" Teal'c asks when Carter dries up, her eyes pleading with them not to make her say it aloud.

Jack's face scrunches up in thought. He's been trying not to think about Foster, or the yet to be located Talbot. They're not forgotten, but they can't be helped as far as he knows, and Daniel's got all his attention right now. He's having trouble thinking about anything else and it's slowing him down, weighing him down. Daniel's lying on a makeshift bed of blankets in the shade, his eyes closed. Jack knows that Daniel's not asleep, although he doubts he's listening with any comprehension.

"Yeah, we can try that," Jack says finally. "I don't suppose it'll go well, but we don't need to... chop, right?" He makes a motion with his hand. "Whittle. We can whittle."

"A relatively small sample should be sufficient," Teal'c says. He reaches out across the table they've dragged out of a hut and placed in the open air and picks up a notebook. It's small in his hand, not one of the larger journals Daniel keeps, but Jack knows it's Daniel's before Teal'c speaks. Something about the way the cover's worn although the book's new.

"God, he kept notes, didn't he?" Jack shakes his head. "Of course he did. Torture him and he'd ask for a break so he could scribble down what size pincers you were using."

"Daniel Jackson has done just that," Teal'c says with a faint distant disapproval hovering over his words. "It is -- not pleasant to read, O'Neill, yet it is my hope that it contains much of value."

"Carter?" Jack asks, taking the book from Teal'c's hand and repressing a shiver because the rough, thick paper cover reminds him of skin now, Daniel's skin. "Have you read it?"

She shakes her head. "No, sir. I've been going through what we think was Sacer's hut, looking for something... I don't know what. Just something that would help Daniel. There's nothing."

Jack looks at Teal'c. "Give me the Cliff's Notes version, Teal'c; I told you what Daniel said before he lost it; too much to hope for that there's a bit about how to remove the collars?"

Teal'c doesn't bother to answer that.

"Daniel said that the Shalin shaped the wood into a collar," Sam says.

"Yeah? So?"

"How?" Sam asks, glancing between them. "We've seen that the trees react badly to being touched by us and you'd think that tools would be almost as bad as flame."

"Daniel said the Shalin weren't human," Jack reminds her. "Maybe they just ask nicely."

"You might have something there, sir," Carter says.

"I do?" Jack smiles at Teal'c. "See; just like always; I say something dumb and Carter whips into words of wisdom, just like that, and saves the day." He tries to snap his fingers and misses. "Damn."

"Well, I'm not saying --" Sam begins and then ducks her head as Jack glares at her. "What I mean is; if they've got some sort of rapport, maybe it allows them to persuade the wood to take whatever form they need. We don't know they only make the collars with it for instance."

There's something Jack needs to remember. He stares across the clearing, seeing not the dusty emptiness, but the fighting, as Carter stops talking.

"O'Neill?"

A sword in a hand. A hand... a circle around Daniel's neck and around...

"A ring. Sacer wore a damned ring." Jack's fist smacks into the table. "I'll bet you that's how he stayed in contact with them."

"Sir, we can't be sure of that."

Jack's already striding over to the hut where they've piled the bodies of the villagers. No one's had time to bury them, and with the whole planet a charnel house there doesn't seem much point.

It's not pleasant, looking over the corpses, but it's instructive.

"They all appear to be wearing a ring fashioned from the wood of the Lindess tree," Teal'c observes.

Jack's found Sacer easily enough; he's the only one with no head. "Yeah, they do. How about that." He pulls out a small penknife and touches Sacer's ring gingerly. Nothing happens. "Either it died when he did, or it was on the way to killing him when I gave it a hand."

"We need to send this back to base, sir," Carter says. "Can you remove it?"

Jack holds up the knife. "Oh, yeah."

***

"So you're saying that it looks as if everyone is wearing one of these rings?"

"Can't say for certain, sir, but I sent a team to the city and there wasn't a corpse without one."

Hammond sounds tired. "I see. Colonel, do you feel that you're in any immediate danger?"

"Not unless we get the urge to start accessorising, sir. Any progress at your end?"

"Doctor Fraiser is preparing something right now. Although the Lindess didn't seem to mind taking over Doctor Foster, she thinks that our bodies and in particular our blood doesn't contain all it needs. She's hoping that if we make Doctor Jackson's body even less of an ideal environment it'll slow down the transformation without provoking the Lindess into attacking its host."

"Sounds risky, sir."

"We don't have much choice, Jack. And she's far from certain that it'll work."

"He doesn't have much time, General."

"I'm well aware of that. We're doing all we can."

"Yes, sir. O'Neill out."

Jack fingers the notebook in his pocket as he walks back to Daniel. He's putting off reading it but he has to. Teal'c might've missed something -- God knows, Daniel's handwriting's something you need Daniel to translate -- and Jack has to know what happened, because not knowing is even worse.

He's still a hundred feet away when Daniel screams, and he's running, P90 smacking painfully against his hip because he's still holding on to that damned notebook. He shoves it into his pocket and grabs at the rifle to steady it.

Daniel's huddled over and when Jack goes to his knees beside him he has to deal with the frantic, agonised noises Daniel's making, as well as some solid hits from a flailing fist. Teal'c appears and between them they get Daniel out of the tight curl he's in, held down by their hands, Jack's knee pressing down hard across Daniel's thighs.

"Dammit, Daniel, talk to me!"

"His hand, O'Neill," Teal'c says.

"What?" Jack focuses on the hand that hasn't left his lip bleeding and has to look away for a moment. "Oh, God."

"Jack..."

The pain's done what none of Jack's pleading could, and Daniel's back with them, his eyes wild and lost.

"Yeah, right here, Daniel."

There's a splat as Daniel's blood gathers and drips off the spur of wood sticking out of his hand, landing on the thirsty ground. It's dark and sharp and Jack wants to pull it out so they can shake their heads over it admiringly and slap a band-aid over the gouge, all fixed, good as new, here's a sucker for being a brave boy.

He doesn't touch it.

Behind him, he can hear footsteps, fast and hard. Carter. She gives the torn, invaded flesh of Daniel's hand a swift glance and starts to tear at the packing around a small box.

"Came through just after you signed off, sir. It's from Fraiser."

Daniel's staring at them, mute and panting for breath. Jack's reminded of Sara giving birth and hates that he is because it's tainting a memory and he can't -- won't -- see this as being an act of creation.

It's destroying Daniel and he wants it to stop.

Carter's injecting Daniel with something, Teal'c's hands gentle on Daniel's arm, holding the twisted limb firmly, carefully. Daniel starts to squirm, bucking up under Jack's weight.

If this makes things worse there's nothing they can do, Jack thinks. No way to suck the stuff out of him. Daniel's bare heels are digging into the earth, grinding into it hard as his body arcs and stiffens and his laboured, harsh breaths are worse than screams.

"Sir --" Carter's voice cracks and Jack looks down as the spur retreats back inside Daniel's body with a thick, wet slither of sound.

"Way to go, Fraiser," he murmurs, exultant and trying to school himself back to wariness because they're not out of -- they're not -- "How about his neck? Teal'c?"

"The collar is still... attached," Teal'c says after a cursory glance. He cradles Daniel's head in his hands, and Daniel gives a plaintive, choked sigh, and settles back, head in Teal'c's lap, eyes wide.

Jack eases off Daniel, patting his leg absently and not taking his hand away afterwards. "Yeah, well."

"Daniel?" Carter finishes packing away the syringe and moves in closer. "Are you in pain? Janet sent something for that, too."

Daniel shakes his head. His eyes are wet but whatever he's crying, it isn't tears. Too thick, translucent not transparent. "No. No pain."

Daniel lies so badly it's fucking embarrassing to watch him, but Jack doesn't push him on it. He needs Daniel focused and sharp.

"Talk to me, Daniel. We don't have much time." Jack gestures to Teal'c. "Sit him up, Teal'c."

Without comment, Teal'c does just that, Daniel's head lolling against his shoulder, Teal'c's arm supporting him. Teal'c's fingers curl loosely, palm upward, for a moment and then his hand grips Daniel's arm.

"Going to make this quick, Daniel, before you fade out on me again."

Daniel nods, his gaze searching Jack's face.

"Everyone's wearing rings made from those goddamn trees; know anything about that?"

Daniel says a word that makes no sense and Jack's about to ask him to repeat it when Teal'c's eyebrows lift. "You made mention of that in your notes, Daniel Jackson. I did not realise it referred to the rings."

"What?" Jack hates this. Not knowing, lost, two steps behind. Usually he's faking it but not now. "Teal'c?"

"Brelinith," Teal'c says and Daniel nods.

"Okay, so what do they do? Some sort of communication device?"

"More than that," Daniel says, each word shaped by lips that weren't able to move the way they should. "Link. Permanent."

"And they all wore them?" Carter asks.

"They did after I told them to." Daniel closes his eyes. "It was too soon. They weren't ready."

"Weren't ready for what?" Carter asks gently.

"The Ancients left instructions and I translated them." Daniel won't open his eyes. "I thought that would make Sacer pleased with me. Enough that he wouldn't do this, but he still did."

"Yeah, and now he's dead," Jack says.

Daniel frowns. "No head."

"Yeah, well, looks like he was a walking dead man anyway," Jack says. "You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

"You know I do."

"I know you do, but I don't know what." Jack considers his sentence and tacks on, "You know. Or did. What did you do?"

Carter gives him an exasperated look and he mouths "What?" at her.

"I think what Daniel's trying to say is that the Shalin weren't ready for this next stage and that it killed them," Carter says.

"I killed them," Daniel corrects her. A bubble of a giggle pops out. "I'm in trouble, aren't I?"

Jack's hand smacks across Daniel's mouth. "Stop it! You stay with me, Daniel, or so help me --"

Daniel squirms free and Jack does wipe his hand clean this time, making no attempt to hide it. "You told them the risks, didn't you? Come on; this is you we're talking about; you _had_ to have told them!"

Daniel nods. "They didn't believe me. They wouldn't listen." He straightens, animated again, his words clear enough now Jack's adjusted to the way Daniel's talking. "It meant merging without cost, without loss, but they hadn't --" Daniel looks frustrated. "They hadn't contributed enough to make it safe. Not enough of them had merged with the Lindess to, to water them down."

"Huh?"

"No, I understand it, sir," Carter says eagerly. "If the knowledge is shared between the Lindess, then every Shalin who merged with them would have become part of that, but a lot of Shalin would've been needed to make a difference. It's like dropping a few grains of salt into a huge pail of water and then expecting an ocean fish to be able to survive in it."

"I see," Teal'c says, his voice a quiet rumble. "They were exposed to the Lindess and their minds were overcome."

"Then why isn't Daniel insane?" Jack demands.

Daniel looks at him for a long moment. "Uh, Jack... you don't notice a difference in me here? I don't know if I'm flattered or insulted."

"You are sane," Jack says fiercely. "You're pissing me off, just like normal, and you're still you. I'll tell you when you've gone nuts, okay?"

"Good," Daniel says, leaning back against Teal'c. "Because I want to know."

"So what now?" Carter asks, brushing her fingers over the wound in Daniel's hand.

"We get this collar off Daniel," Jack says, standing up and brushing the dirt off his pants. God, when he gets back home he's showering for a week.

"We don't know how to do that, sir," Carter objects.

"I've got an idea," Jack says. "Suppose we ask nicely?"

"Communicate with it?"

"Why not?" Jack asks, spreading his hands widely. "Wouldn't be the weirdest thing we've ever done."

"But how?"

"Has it occurred to anyone else that the balance of power has shifted here?" Jack asks. Teal'c cocks his head and looks thoughtful. "With the Shalin gone, the Lindess are on their own now. And if we wanted to torch the planet, there's not a damn thing they could do to stop us."

"Apart from killing me," Daniel points out diffidently.

"They're doing that anyway," Jack says. He raises his voice. "You listening to me? Am I loud enough for you? I've promised him I'll kill him before I let him end up as one of you and he won't die alone."

"Sir..." Carter hisses. "They're sentient beings -- you can't --"

"Carter, I'm ordering you to shut the hell up. I don't care what they are." Jack squats down and puts his face close to Daniel's, smiling at him coldly. "Talk to them, Daniel. They're in your head enough to know what a Stargate does and where a spaceship can take you; I think they know I mean it and I think they're bright enough to understand every word I'm saying. Well?"

Daniel's eyes close and then open slowly, the blue drenched with brown.

***

There's an instinctive shift of position that leaves Daniel facing the three of them and suddenly everyone's standing and Jack's finger is hooked inside the trigger of his rifle, cool metal warming fast.

"So who am I talking to?" Jack asks, stepping back just enough that he's got room to pick a non-lethal part of Daniel to shoot if he has to.

"To me, Jack," Daniel says patiently. "The Lindess don't really understand the concept of vocalising thought."

"They don't?"

"Why should they? It's not like they have mouths, or vocal chords."

"Well, I don't know! They might!"

"They communicate mentally."

"It's not like they have brains either, Daniel!"

"No, they do, they just don't have a head to keep them in."

Jack's just settling into the conversation when Carter clears her throat and the comforting illusion that he and Daniel are having one of their little chats dissolves. Dark eyes, mottled skin, twisted, crowded body --

"Can you talk to them, Daniel? I don't care if you use Morse code or smoke signals, just do it. Make them let you go."

Daniel shakes his head. "No. I've been thinking and I've changed my mind; this, all of it, is my fault. I've single-handedly destroyed something that's been developing for millennia, and I did it in a few weeks. Go me."

"First, it wasn't your damn fault, and second, it was a dumb idea to start with!" Jack takes a deep breath. "Daniel, you said it yourself; the Shalin weren't doing it right. If they had been, then who knows; maybe they'd have been ready for the rings a long time ago. You warned them and they didn't listen."

Even warped out of true, Daniel's face can still convey stubbornness like nobody else. "I owe it to them to complete the transformation. That'll be three of us, and --"

"And _what_?" Jack demands. "It won't make any difference. It's a waste of time and it's a waste of _you_." He pushes his rifle down and to the side and steps closer. "And it's going to hurt, Daniel, and you're going to be screaming in there for ever, and --"

"Sir!"

"Oh, forget it, Carter," he says, swinging around and giving her a bright, angry grin. "Daniel's in one of his heroic moods again and we all know how well that goes, don't we?"

Carter's horrified face lets him know just how giant a leap over the line he's just taken but he's too lost in misery to feel more than a pang of regret that she's looking at him like that. She steps forward and addresses Daniel, her gaze sliding away from his face. "Daniel, the Colonel's right; you're not part of this; none of us are. If there's any chance that you can get them to accept that--"

"Sam, they know who I am. What I did."

"And they know how many of your team have died and that you didn't mean to do it," Carter says.

Teal'c nods in silent agreement and Daniel wavers, just a little, before shaking his head. "They're not -- it's too soon and the concepts you're asking them to embrace are too abstract, too alien to them."

"Why? Vengeance came pretty easy to the damn Shalin!"

"Jack, if you'll just listen -- maybe this isn't such a terrible thing, maybe it's an opportunity to learn something new, be part of something wonderful -- Jack, _listen_ \--"

"To what? You're never going to make me think that this is a good idea, Daniel. In fact, you know what? I prefer the one where I kill you."

"O'Neill, I cannot permit you to do that," Teal'c says, stepping forward.

Jack ignores him, sick with hurt and anger that Daniel would even think about going along with this willingly. "Tell them, Daniel," he says softly. "You could have told them a long time ago. I know you; as soon as that thing went around your neck, you'd have started to try to talk to them. It's what you do. And you were scared at first, and I get that, I really do, but now you're not and that I don't get at all. That makes me wonder if I'm really talking to my Daniel or some faked-up version."

"Oh, I'm real," Daniel says tersely. "Want me to tell you your favourite beer? Where you keep your porn? The last movie we watched together, and how that connects to my second question?"

Sam ducks her head, hiding a blush or an embarrassed grin -- Jack's money's on the grin -- and Teal'c's eyebrow lifts in a question he's wise enough not to voice.

"No, Daniel," Jack says, smothering his anger in sarcasm and failing to extinguish it completely, "I don't. Because I know all of that already and it proves nothing."

"Ah, sir --"

"Carter, if you're going to ask me what we watched and why you weren't invited --"

"Or I," Teal'c says off-handedly enough that Jack knows he's mildly hurt.

"You were off-world," Jack says defensively. He'd have included Teal'c; sure he would. Teal'c would've had fun winding Daniel up by waiting until Daniel was starting to get flushed, tongue darting out, glasses getting adjusted way more often than usual, and then asking questions that left Daniel trying to divide his attention between the screen and his curiosity in Jaffa customs. Yeah, Teal'c would've been welcome.

"No, sir, I wasn't," Carter says. "And I know what you watched because I took the tapes back; Daniel didn't have time."

"Can we focus here?" Jack growls. God, Daniel just doesn't get the rules sometimes, which makes no fucking sense given what he does for a day job. He's going to have words with him about that little stunt when this is all over.

"What I was trying to say, sir, was that maybe we're approaching this from the wrong end."

"How's that?" Jack's fizzing with impatience now. This is it, he knows it; Daniel can talk to the fucking trees and get them to back the hell off, maybe even do something about Foster and Talbot, and they'll all be home in time for the hockey game. It's all going to be fine, and they can waste time bickering as if they're sitting around a table at the SGC eating lunch, and it doesn't matter, he doesn't mind, because Daniel can _do_ this. There's never been an alien he can't sweet talk, certain System Lords excepted, and this one's in his _brain_, dammit, in a front-row seat with a great view of the stage.

Daniel's a star, a pro, a charmer.

He's just not fucking performing tonight for some reason.

"Daniel, when the Shalin died, it wasn't instantaneous, was it?" Carter asks.

He shakes his head. "Sacer wore the ring for a few hours before you came, but I don't see --"

"So the Lindess had chance to take a lot of information from them?"

Daniel nods. "I suppose so. They -- they're used to the Shalin not coping well with the merging; they've come to expect that, but I can feel that they're shocked by what's happened." He frowns and stops, reaching up to touch his face. "I don't -- that _hurt_." He tries to smile. "I probably shouldn't ask for a mirror, should I?"

"No, Daniel, you look fine," Jack says, making sure he doesn't answer too quickly. "Little under the weather, but nothing we can't fix once you're back home."

"I'm not going. I need to -- I'm not finished here."

"Yes, you are."

Daniel looks at him, shakes his head, and walks away to stare at trees.

The three of them exchange glances and then Jack's radio crackles at him and it's the Tok'ra wanting to know if they can go now, and by the time he's dealt with that and updated Hammond, Daniel's slipped silently out of the hut he was supposed to be resting in and vanished into the trees.

"I'm wondering if even with the deaths, the Lindess can do what they need to do, even if it's too late for the Shalin," Carter says as they move through the forest. It's hot, and although as far as they know there's nothing dangerous on the planet apart from the trees, Jack's getting a headache from peering through greenery looking for someone about to jump them. "If we can make Daniel accept that, maybe he'll be ready to try convincing them."

"What do they need to do?" Jack snaps, spitting out a bug. Hates this planet. Hates it. "Mutate and grow legs, or something?"

Carter doesn't smile. "I don't know, sir. The trees just got a flood of information when they've been used to it coming in a slow drip; once they've processed that, then who knows what they'll do with it?"

Teal'c glances at her, the filtered sunlight turning the tattoo on his forehead to an indistinct dazzle of gold. "In his notes, Daniel Jackson speculated that the Ancients were trying to alleviate the shortcomings of both races, and without the Shalin, their plan must surely fail."

"What shortcomings exactly?" Carter asked, kicking her boot free of a tangle of brambles.

Teal'c shrugs. "The Lindess could not influence their environment in any meaningful way, but enjoy long lives, whereas the Shalin were mobile and able to nurture the trees, yet lived only a scant few years."

"How few?" Carter asked. "In comparison with the Lindess, I'd imagine we all seem like mayflies."

Teal'c shakes his head, maneuvering his staff weapon past a low branch. "No, Major Carter; did you not see the report on the bodies in the city? None were of babies and there were very few young children. The Shalin mature rapidly, reaching full growth within a few weeks, and die after approximately three decades."

"Thirty?" Jack says incredulously.

"Indeed," Teal'c confirms. "The Ancients must have hoped that the Lindess would have provided them with --"

"With nothing," Jack interrupts. "It's not giving them longer lives to shove them inside a tree; why isn't that blindingly obvious to everyone?" Opportunity, his ass. Does it look like Foster's enjoying himself, poor bastard?

"You're still reacting as a human," Carter says, keeping her tone respectful but firm. She's good at that. None of them are scared about calling him on it when they think he's full of shit and normally Jack likes that, wouldn't have it any other way.

Not now, with Daniel switching sides on him and making it complicated.

"I _am_ human, Carter. I can't react any other way. And don't ask me to put myself in their shoes -- sorry, _roots_, because I'm not Daniel, okay?"

"I'm just saying --"

"I know what you're trying to say, Carter." Jack rolls his eyes. "Fine; maybe for both of them it was a way out, but it went wrong -- and if the Ancients had bothered to stick around and see their little science project get a big, honking 'F', we wouldn't be cleaning up their mess, so don't think they're not on my shit-list, too, because they _are_."

"Yes, sir," Carter says, her voice subdued.

"When we locate Daniel Jackson, what do you plan to do?" Teal'c asks. "These tracks are fresh; I believe that we will soon be upon him."

"I'm going to take him home," Jack says. "He's no risk to others and that stuff Janet gave him seemed to help."

"But we tried taking him through the 'gate before, sir," Carter says.

"Yeah, and we nearly killed him. I know. But we don't have any choice now. I figure we get the 'gate open and maybe give him another dose of that stuff, knock him out, too, rush him through..." Jack frowns. "I'm thinking once we're light years away that collar won't be able to communicate with the rest of them and we can get it off. It's a plan. Not much of one, but unless either of you can come up with something better, it's what we're going with."

Carter bites her lip but stays silent and Teal'c inclines his head, looking relieved, as if the prospect of doing something is as appealing to him as it is to Jack.

They push their way through another few hundred yards of forest and find Daniel.

Jack still doesn't know what a Lindess looks like in its natural state, and he's been giving every tree they pass a suspicious glare, but he's been wasting his time. The lindess tree Daniel's kneeling beside is unmistakable, not for its bark or foliage which, to Jack's eyes, resembles an oak, but because the soughing limbs are moving against the wind, not with it.

"Daniel, get up and let's get out of here," Jack orders, striding over to him.

In the time that they've been apart, Daniel's lost his jacket. The curve of his spine is more pronounced now and under the darkened, still-bruised skin, Jack can see a tracery of veins, green-tinged and thick.

Daniel's hands are flat against the tree and Jack reaches down and takes hold of Daniel's wrist, rough skin hot under his hand, what feels like too many bones bulking it out.

He tugs and Daniel cries out, his head going back, dark eyes wide and open and blank. Jack stops pulling and goes to his knees, sliding the tip of his finger between Daniel's hand and the tree.

Fuck.

"It's got him," he says as the others join him. "Shoot, branch, whatever, running right into his hands. Or out of them. Hard to tell."

"Then we must free him," Teal'c says.

"I'm not sure that's such a good --" Carter begins.

Jack gets up and walks away, taking Carter and Teal'c with him. When he's about ten feet away he nods at Teal'c's staff weapon. "May I?"

Teal'c's eyebrows tug together but he passes his weapon to Jack and steps aside.

"Sir, please," Carter says urgently. "At least try talking to him -- to them."

"You want me to talk?" Jack raises his voice. "Daniel? Excuse me? Earth to Daniel Jackson? Get away from the life-sucking alien and let me save your ass. And tree, assuming you can hear me, let go of him, or I'll shoot you in _your_ ass, and trust me, I'll find it." He gives it a beat of three and then shrugs. "Guess it didn't work. Let's go with my idea."

The blast from the staff weapon rips a hole in the bark, just where the trunk divides into branches, and the forest screams.

***

Jack watches Daniel's body suffer for as long as he can bear it and then fires again. Against the tortured screech and creak of wood sliding against wood -- how many of the Lindess did Daniel say there were? A couple of thousand? Sounds like more --Carter's voice is lost, and she knows better than to touch him when he's fighting, or get in his line of sight, but he can tell that she's trying to make him stop.

Teal'c's immobile, watchful, ready.

And inside Jack's head, the screaming is really loud but he doesn't think any of it's escaping through his mouth which is clamped tight shut as he fires for a third time, walking forward as he blows the trunk of the tree apart and lets go of the staff weapon.

Daniel's hands slide across the bark in a slow caress as he falls free, the bent rigid bow of his body splintering into a hundred disconnected jerks and quivers that die away and leave him limp and sprawled.

Jack drags him clear of the tree and sucks in a sharp breath when he sees the way the collar's sunk deeply into flesh. Blood's trickling down Daniel's neck and oozing from his pierced hands and Jack wants it to, because while it flows, Daniel lives. He digs his fingers under the hard squeeze of the collar and tears at it, feeling it give, just a little.

"Oh, God." Carter's beside him, kneeling, biting back useless words, her fingers trying to get to a pulse point.

"Knife, Carter!"

She fumbles one out of her pocket and sets her teeth before starting to saw at the dark band across Daniel's throat, the blade slipping in blood and fraying Daniel's skin. "I can't -- it's like it's part of him, sir."

Daniel's face is congested with blood, mouth gaping and wide, eyes empty.

Not dead. Not dead.

Jack's chanting the words under his breath, words which become, 'Don't die, don't die, dammit,' at some point, but he's not sure Daniel's listening.

The sky above is darkening, and with a painful abruptness, the lindess trees stop moving. Around them, the other trees take the stirring air and fill it with the rustle of leaves, but it's achingly quiet by comparison.

Jack doesn't need Teal'c's hoarse shout of warning to know that it isn't a good sign when your enemy stops yelling but you know they're not dead.

Every sundered splinter, every blasted branch lying scattered around the Lindess, quivers, rises into the air, and darts towards them as if thrown by an invisible army. Jack falls forward over Daniel, sheltering him, his hand grabbing blindly at Carter to pull her under him, too, as much as possible. He waits, hunched and shaking, to be torn apart, nostrils filled with the smell of blood and earth, his nose tickled maddeningly by Daniel's hair, Carter's shoulder bruising his chin as she burrows closer.

Beneath him Daniel's body heaves upwards, destroying the soap bubble of sanctuary Jack's body has made in one strong, unexpected surge.

Jack cries out, inarticulate protest and grief because Daniel's alive and he's just killed them all but nothing happens but a teeth-jarring jab from Carter's elbow.

"What the hell?"

"O'Neill." Teal'c's voice is hushed as he steps out from behind a tree. "Do not move again."

"I didn't do it last time," Jack mutters, squinting disbelievingly at the array of makeshift arrows poised to plunge into them, hanging in the air a few feet away. "Shit, that's impossible."

Carter grunts with frustration. Jack's hand is holding her in place and she can't see. "Sir..."

"No sudden movements, Carter. There's a pointy stick aimed right at your back."

She peeks, cautiously, and then glances down at Daniel. "Sir, Daniel's collar --"

Jack lets his gaze drift slowly down and he swallows. The collar is slack now, a raw, bleeding strip of skin visible beneath it. As far as he can see, it's still attached. Daniel's breathing is barely perceptible and his eyes are closed.

"Okay, what's holding those sticks up and why aren't they taking us apart?" he murmurs.

"I am, and I don't want them to," Daniel answers. His eyes open, blue and opaque, baby eyes, vague and unseeing. "Get off me. You're heavy."

"Oh, sure," Jack says moving to lie beside him. "Anything you say, Daniel."

"And if you could just _stop talking_, that would be nice."

Jack gets a look from Carter that's aimed at Jack, not the Colonel, and does just that. Behind them, Teal'c sighs, the small susurration speaking for all of them.

The cloud of projectiles falls to the forest floor in a succession of soft sounds and Daniel sits up and tugs at his collar with both hands.

Jack comes up to his knees and watches the myriad tendrils the collar's sent pushing and probing into Daniel's body retreat. He's lost in the speechless, soundless agony on Daniel's face. He's not screaming. He should be. Jack wants to scream for him as he hears the sucking rip of skin and sinew, the snap, crackle, pop of bones re-aligning, but in the face of Daniel's silence, he can't.

"Daniel..." Carter whispers. "Oh, God, Daniel..."

Blood and spittle froth and drip from Daniel's mouth, spat out like accusations. His hands are locked around the collar, the sheen of bone at his knuckles making small white patches on the gradually lightening skin. Shades of brown and green leach from his skin and his gracelessly jerking body is taking back its shape, moment by moment.

It ends with the obscenity of the slow, wet withdrawal of the spike from his neck. Jack crawls over to where Daniel lies and touches his hand to Daniel's face.

Daniel stares up at Jack and then starts to work the collar over his head. Jack doesn't help him. His fingers are wet with blood and he can smell the piss that's soaking warm and damp into the knees of his pants. He doesn't mind that. Doesn't even shift over out of the wet patch.

But he's not touching that thing -- he _can't_ \-- and he'll take the shame of that knowledge over the ordeal.

Daniel looks at the collar, touching the tip of his finger to a bloodstain, and then stands, grunting as his legs have to stiffen to hold him up, and carries it back to the shot-up Lindess, hooking it casually over the stub of a severed limb.

Teal'c and Carter stand behind Jack, waiting.

Too much waiting. Too much silence.

"So what the hell just happened there?" Jack demands, getting up.

Teal'c and Carter move forward, past him. Teal'c scoops up his staff weapon and Carter heads for Daniel, shielding him from Jack. Teal'c joins her in supporting Daniel, whose arms go around their shoulders. It's awkward; Teal'c too tall for that to be comfortable, but it's more for the chance to hug him without having to call it that.

Daniel doesn't look ready for hugs.

"Can you walk, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c asks, his voice deep and concerned.

Daniel nods and lets his head rock against Sam's as she leans in and murmurs something Jack can't hear and hates that he can't.

They begin to walk slowly out of the forest leaving Jack to follow, something twisting tight in his gut because Daniel won't even look at him.

***

Jack walks into Daniel's office to find it occupied for the first time since their return.

With Daniel in it, the crowded room works, fitting around him in a careful curve of clutter, a shell for a snail. It's never felt anything but welcoming before, spicing up the cool, dead air of the SGC with odd, exotic scents from packing cases filled with reeds and giving Jack's khaki-drenched eyes rich, muted colours to look at, garish rainbow splashes of paint and dye time-washed to tasteful.

Now the oasis has shown itself as mirage.

This past week or so, with Daniel submitting to tests, mental and physical, cold-eyed and silent, before disappearing for a weekend that stretched to four days, Jack's found himself standing on the threshold of this room, unable to take the step that would put him uninvited inside Daniel's space, maybe half a dozen times.

It's no different now Daniel's in there. He'd thought it would be, but it isn't.

Daniel glances up, deliberately fails to meet Jack's eyes, and carries on dictating notes into a hand-held recorder in a quiet murmur that manages to hold an edge, soft though it is.

"Sorry," Jack says, when it's painfully obvious that Daniel's done saying hello. "Didn't know you were back. Am I interrupting? Because, you know, I can come back later."

Daniel's thumb presses down on a button, robbing the air of the hiss of tape, and he looks up again. This time his gaze flickers over Jack, stabbing at him purposefully like an angry wasp. He nods to himself and stands, walking slowly over to Jack and pausing just out of reach.

He extends his hand, and for a moment Jack thinks he wants them to exchange a handshake, call a truce in a war he doesn't remember starting and doesn't want to fight, but Daniel's hand is palm up and steady and his eyes are staring at Jack's breast pocket.

"Oh, you want this? Sure. MacKenzie wanted to take a look, but Hammond said no, and --"

Jack hears himself start to babble and just gives Daniel the notebook. Daniel's fingers curl protectively around it, but his body flinches as if he's holding fire and acid and shit and Jack wants to snatch it back, carry it for him, but Daniel's never asked that of him with any other burden and the chances of him doing it now are... not so good, really.

"It's interesting," Jack offers. Lame. So very fucking lame.

"How would you know? You haven't read it."

The flat certainty in Daniel's voice verges on insulting.

"What? I've read it." Jack taps at his empty pocket. "Had it in here for days, and I might not be a speed-reader like you, but it isn't War and Peace, you know. Twenty-two pages, that's all."

"You haven't read it."

"Twenty-two pages, Daniel!"

Daniel places the notebook on a shelf beside a vase where it becomes part of the whole, flat and lost in the shadows.

"You haven't --"

"No! No, I haven't read it, Daniel. Is that better? That what you wanted to hear? I haven't read it." Jack steps inside the room, feeling the weight of all it holds settle on his shoulders, willing to bear it if it'll stop Daniel saying those four words again.

"I know." Daniel leans against his desk, gripping it with his hands, leaving his body open to view or attack. It's neither challenge nor submission but self-bondage. Daniel wants to hit him. Wants it enough to have to fill his hands with more than hate. "You wouldn't be here if you had. And we have nothing to discuss until you do, so I'd like you to leave. I have work to do."

Jack lets his gaze run over Daniel, hungry for the sight of him looking normal. Kind of, anyway. Daniel's hair's been trimmed severely, strips of paler skin showing at his neck and forehead, the over-grown soft fall replaced by something close to a buzz-cut. Doesn't suit him, but Jack's patient. It'll grow back to the way he prefers it; short enough that Daniel can't hide behind it, long enough to -- if he ever -- oh, for fuck's sake, what difference does it make?

He's skinnier, too, but as Janet reported him as malnourished and dehydrated that's to be expected. His black T-shirt is loose over his chest and belly and he's huddled in a blue uniform jacket so Jack can't see for himself if Daniel's skin is still marked.

He wants to. His last memory of the planet is of stepping through the 'gate with the image of Daniel's bare, bruised back to keep him cold and angry. He'd needed that to let him get through what followed and it hadn't quite been enough.

He can't look at Daniel, at the tense, vibrating length of him leaning, and not want to strip him bare and make sure he's back in one piece. He looks now at shrouded skin and sees dark marks drifting over shoulder blades, stamped over kidneys, purple shading to yellow and green; dirty bruises, his mother would've called them; the sort that looked as if you could scrub them off, but you couldn't.

It's not been that long. Daniel might still be bruised. Jack doesn't think he wants to look at them but he knows he won't stop seeing them until he does.

"I have work to do," Daniel repeats, his voice clear and angry.

Jack smirks, giving it all he has, knowing Daniel hates it when he does that and not caring. "Yeah. You have a mission report to make. I want it on my desk as soon as fucking possible, Doctor Jackson."

Jack doesn't know how Daniel does this to him. Only Daniel. Only him. He can hate, hurt, be angry and mourn without ever letting it show, but Daniel won't even leave him that shred of privacy. Daniel's inside him, wrapped around him.

And Daniel's staring, mouth hanging open, the way it does when he's too busy thinking to spare a synapse or two to snap it closed. He looks stunned. Jack carries on, drunk with the taste of free-flowing words after a week of guarded, scripted responses.

"I haven't read it and I don't _want_ to read it. Teal'c did. Go talk to Teal'c. Go cry on his shoulder if mine's not good enough."

Daniel's still staring.

"Think about it, Daniel," Jack hisses. "Think about what I did when all I knew was that you'd been fucking tortured. Doesn't it scare you wondering what I'd have done if I'd have known the details?"

"You did enough." Daniel's eyes, blue eyes, blue -- and if Jack sees them brown, just for a second, it's the way this damned room is like a cave and not because he's dreaming again -- are accusing.

"For what they did to you and the others?" Jack shakes his head. "If they let me go back --"

"Go back?" Daniel laughs, low and incredulous. "You're lucky you're still here, Colonel."

"Lucky?" Jack rolls his eyes. "It wasn't luck."

"Undue influence? Pull?"

And hasn't Daniel learned sarcasm from the best, Jack thinks.

"Friends."

"Isn't that what I said?"

This isn't the place to do this. Not with the open door at his back and the corridor behind it.

"What did I do, Daniel?"

"Ask Foster. Ask Talbot."

"Kind of hard, wouldn't you say? They're more or less dead."

"And whose fault is that, Jack?"

Jack. Not Colonel. Why does he not think that's an improvement?

"Is this a trick question?" Jack moves forward and rests his elbow on a shelf. Something tilts and rocks and he grabs at it, losing his balance and all pretensions to dignity in the process. "Go on; you can tell me; I say it was my fault and that's wrong; I say it wasn't and I'm still deep in it. Help me out here, Daniel. Throw me a bone."

Daniel smiles, tight and hard and beaming. Scary smile. "Not this time, Jack."

"Fine." Jack smiles back, hating that the warm, sweet curve of Daniel's mouth has turned into a weapon. "It wasn't my fault. Whatever happened to them happened before I set foot on the planet, so, you know, I'm going to pass on the blaming me, just this once."

"I could have saved them."

"No, you couldn't." Jack's sure of that. Utterly certain. Foster, Talbot; they were gone.

"How do you know that?" Daniel says. "How can you possibly know that?"

"I just do, okay?"

They should be yelling. By now, they're usually yelling, ends of sentences overlapping, a discordant duet. Jack doesn't mind the yelling. It's a sledgehammer to break down a wall.

These clipped, depressed recitals of what should've been screamed, full-blooded accusations, are bricks and mortar.

Jack turns to walk away.

"I've been asked to testify at the inquiry."

"I know."

"I'm going to tell them the truth."

Jack turns back, staring not at Daniel but the pale edge of the notebook, far out of reach. "Which one?"

"You should have trusted me."

"You weren't you, Daniel, or I might have."

"I am now."

"Yeah?" Jack stares at him. "Then I trust you, Daniel, just like always. See? Simple. Tell them what the hell you think they need to know and I'll take whatever I've got coming to me for saving you."

"You really see it that way, don't you? O'Neill the conquering hero, rescuing his pet geek?" Daniel's got that half-smile on his face and he's nodding as if he's listening to another voice whispering in his ear.

That doesn't worry Jack. Daniel's always done that.

"Of course you do." Daniel sits down and pulls the recorder towards him, flicking it on. "On closer examination of the engraving, I found that a possible interpretation of the..."

"Daniel --"

Daniel's mouth shapes two words that the recorder won't capture.

"Oh, that's very mature!"

"Is there a problem?"

Jack turns to see General Hammond. Hammond's got that tight-lipped, barely holding in his anger look on his face. Had he been shouting? "No, sir."

Hammond looks past him to Daniel. "Doctor Jackson?"

"No, there's no problem, General. Colonel O'Neill was just leaving."

Hammond looks at them both. "Sort this out, both of you," he says tersely. "I don't want to have to reassign personnel, but if this continues, you leave me no choice."

"Well, that might not be a problem very soon, General," Jack says without looking at Daniel. "You can't reassign me if I've been kicked out on my ass."

Hammond glances at Daniel. "I'm hoping it won't come to that, Colonel. Doctor Jackson, I'm going to need your written report before the inquiry. I know you've spoken about what happened, but you were still in shock, naturally, and if your thoughts on events have changed, that's understandable."

Nice try, but somehow Jack doesn't think Daniel's going to jump through the hoop Hammond's holding up.

"The Colonel's already asked me for it, General. And no, I don't think that they have. In fact, now that I've had time to think about what happened, it's all a lot clearer to me."

"You do what you have to do, Doctor Jackson," George says in a cool, clipped voice. "Jack, Teal'c was looking for you; said you were supposed to meet him in the gym?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then I suggest you get over there right now."

"Yes, sir."

Sometimes it's good to have no choice about what to say.

***

The gym's got more people than Teal'c in it, but by the time Jack's finished warming up they've gone, taking their sidelong glances with them.

Teal'c watches in silence as Jack strides over to a bench and then moves to spot him.

Jack's working with more weight than he can handle and his muscles protest after five reps. He's not surprised when Teal'c's hand wraps around the bar and lifts it away but it doesn't stop him snarling.

"You will injure yourself, O'Neill. I cannot let you do that."

He's not looking for a fight like the one he's just had with Daniel, all jagged, rusty edges to cut deep and leave poison, but there's something tempting about the idea of clean violence.

"Fine. Want to spar a little?"

Teal'c considers that for a moment and then nods. "If you wish."

"Oh, I wish," Jack says.

Twenty minutes later, when he's loose and sweating, each breath pulled out of him in a burning, rasping scrape, Teal'c finally lets Jack hit him hard.

There's something deeply satisfying about the grate of knuckle on jaw, and the tremor that races down Jack's arm is electric enough to get his cock filling in a conditioned response. Knowing that Teal'c let him do it should rob it of meaning but it doesn't. He's hurt someone, sent pain whispering through bone and skin, and in that moment of connection his own pain lessens.

Teal'c never quite drops his guard, never gives Jack an opening he doesn't have to work for, but he's a deliberate beat too slow now and that's enough.

When Teal'c's blood is painting a gloss on his mouth, a smeared slick of red, Jack stops, lets his hands hang heavy, and nods permission.

Teal'c smiles and Jack staggers back, the jarring thump of a solid fist pushing heat and hurt through his head, breaking open his lip and sending a warm-salt trickle of blood down his throat as he swallows convulsively and washes away the taste of Daniel's words.

Better.

Teal'c reaches out and steadies him, one eyebrow lifting in a question.

Jack nods. "Yeah, we're done. Thanks."

Teal'c bows, courteous and sympathetic. Jack liked it better when Teal'c was hitting him.

"He's really pissed this time," Jack says abruptly, going over to get a towel.

"I believe that to be the case," Teal'c says equably, as if it's so much the normal state of affairs that he can't be bothered to get concerned. Jack doesn't think he argues with Daniel enough to make that attitude reasonable.

"And I don't know why." Jack scrubs sweat from the back of his neck with the thin, rough towel, already anticipating the rush of water and sting of soap on his skin.

Teal'c doesn't go near that one.

"You'd think he _wanted_ it to happen." Jack runs his tongue over his lips, testing the sticky, imperfect join of skin and thickened blood.

Teal'c's shoulders shift and roll in an unspoken protest. Okay. Daniel had wanted to be saved. Good to know.

"A thank you would've been nice."

There's a small, impatient grunt and Jack smacks the towel against the bench, producing a crack that makes his ass clench tight instinctively. "Teal'c, can you give a little here? I'm still digging splinters out of my butt from that damn planet, so I'm not in a good mood to start with, and I know damn well you speak better English than me, so let yourself go wild and spit out a sentence or two."

"I do not know what you wish me to say, O'Neill."

"Oh, yes, you do," Jack says. "Don't make me beg."

"You would not."

Jack winds the towel around his fingers, making a thick rope out of it. "No, I guess not."

He feels the press of Teal'c hand against his shoulder. "You are both friends, O'Neill. This will pass."

"You know, he thinks he can get me kicked out." Jack sighs. "And I might, but he's too dumb to see it wouldn't be for what I did on that planet; it'd just be an excuse someone like Kinsey would use. No one cares about anything that went down. Oh, they'll sob into their lattes over the deaths of our people, and wail about the aliens, but bottom line, there was nothing there we could use, and so they don't give a rat's ass. Daniel starts getting sappy over a bunch of trees and they'll -- are you _smiling_?"

"You were inadvertently amusing, O'Neill."

"What? Oh... hey, I did that on purpose!"

"You did not." Teal'c's smile broadens. "It is good to see your mood improve and good to see your concern for Daniel Jackson."

"Let's get cleaned up," Jack says. Improve? Well, maybe a little.

Teal's hand halts him. "In a moment, O'Neill. You asked that I speak and I will do so. It is my belief that Doctor Jackson sees only failure when he thinks of recent events; you, on the other hand, succeeded in what you set out to do. It makes a difference."

"Get Daniel and his team out of there?" Jack says. "Yeah, I suppose we did that. Mostly." He frowns. "Daniel didn't fail. Hell, he fought back even when they were --" His gaze flicks up to meet Teal'c's. "Hurting him," he finishes quietly.

"He did not allow himself to be defeated," Teal'c agrees. "He has great strength of purpose. However, he is not a warrior. I do not think he would view the deaths of the Shalin as a victory or preferable to his own demise."

Jack sits down on a bench, the sweat cooling on his body and making him shiver reflexively. "No, he wouldn't. Hell, I don't like it; that was a lot of dead bodies, Teal'c; that's never easy to deal with."

"Indeed."

"But they weren't down to him and I can't make him see that."

"It is not all that troubles him," Teal'c says with slow reluctance.

"God, Teal'c, us having a conversation like this is bad enough; spit it out will you?" Jack curls his hands into tight fists. "Did he -- you read that book of his; was he raped? Did they rape him, Teal'c?"

Saying it twice is easier than saying it once, repetition blunting the ugly word.

Teal'c's eyes widen. "This is not something you should be discussing with me, O'Neill."

"Just tell me, dammit," Jack snarls, the dull ache in his fingers distracting him from the skin-crawling sensation of sharing. "He wouldn't have any counseling -- not that I blame him -- but if he needs help getting over something like that --"

"He was not," Teal'c said. "Unless it was something he chose not to record, and I do not think that is so, then he was not."

"Well, that's something." Jack says, staring anywhere but at Teal'c as his nightmares lose the part before the bit that has him waking, heart hammering, mouth dry with hate and fear. He's still got a phantasmagoria marching through his dreams, culminating in Daniel getting drawn, screaming, inside that fucking tree, but he knows, waking at least, that that didn't happen.

"Yes," Teal'c says.

"So what's going on in his head? Why's he acting this way?" Jack hears his voice get brash and brutal. Always easier to blame someone else when he's feeling confused. Always easy to blame Daniel because it's usually his fault.

"I am not at liberty to say, O'Neill," Teal'c says. "I suggest you direct your questions to Daniel Jackson himself."

"And he'll tell me to read that damn notebook or come out with something that makes me want to punch him."

Teal'c picks up, one-handed, the weights Jack had struggled with and holds the bar poised and still for a long moment before letting it drop with a clang into its rest.

"I would not give way to that impulse, O'Neill."

Jack eyes the bar as it rocks slowly. "Is that your idea of a subtle threat? Because you need to work on the part where it's subtle. Come on, Teal'c; you know I wouldn't. Might want to at least once a mission, but I never do."

Teal'c inclines his head, the small, familiar gesture suddenly profoundly irritating.

"God, he's got us all looking out for him, hasn't he?" Jack stands and kicks angrily at a half-empty water bottle someone left on the floor. It flies across the room, losing its top, water spraying out. "Ever think how that must feel, Teal'c? Ever think maybe he hates it?"

"You have saved my life, and I yours, O'Neill. It has brought us closer, has it not?"

"Daniel's different," Jack says. He laughs, feeling it catch at his throat. "Flaky, geeky, annoying little bastard --"

"I love you, too, Jack."

Shit.

Daniel walks over to them, still not moving quite right, still not _there_, as if he's unsure he's allowed to take up space, breathe deeply, choose where to go and what to say.

"Daniel, I didn't mean --"

"Every word of it was what you've thought and said a hundred times before," Daniel interrupts. "Don't make yourself even more of a liar, Jack, please."

There's a moment where Jack thinks it'd be worth whatever Teal'c dished out just to lay one on Daniel and jolt the sneer clear out of his eyes leaving shock behind.

Just a moment.

"You know what? Fuck you, Daniel. Just -- stay the hell away from me."

Daniel nods slowly. "I can do that," he says. "Very easily in a few days."

"Still think they're going to kick me out?"

"If they don't, I'll resign," Daniel says. His tongue swipes over his lip and it has to taste bitter, Jack thinks. "I won't go through the 'gate with you again, Jack."

"Why? I got you back in one piece again, didn't I?" Jack demands. "What more did you want me to do, Daniel? I got there as fast as I could. I got you home."

Teal'c walks past them, back straight, eyes blank, and goes through the door, closing it behind him.

"He's going to stand in front of that door until we're done," Jack says softly, knowing it's true because it's what he'd do. "No one's going to walk in on us, Daniel, so go ahead; get it off your chest, whatever it is."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Daniel says. "I explain it to you, nicely dumbed down, of course, because I wouldn't want you to have to actually think about something, and you patronise me into apologising and backing down."

"Well, it'd have a novelty value," Jack says, "because it's never worked that way before!"

Daniel steps closer, his nose wrinkling as he catches the stink of sweat on Jack. It's instinctive, not insulting, but it's enough to make Jack step back, self-conscious because Daniel smells of nothing but clean.

Daniel's eyes narrow and his head tilts as he studies Jack.

He steps forward, crowding Jack, who takes a matching pace back, feeling his heart speed up. He's not sure what he's doing here. It doesn't feel like backing down though; more like a dance, and that's enough to make an uncomfortable grin spread like butter over his face; impossible to wipe off.

Then he's getting pushed back, hard, Daniel's hand around his throat, fingers pressing in all the right places, places Jack's shown him in this very room, and the only thing stopping Daniel is the wall Jack slams into.

He could break the hold Daniel's got on him. Every instinct and trained response is screaming instructions on just how to leave Daniel a whimpering heap of agony on the floor but he's not listening. Not with the blood pounding thick and heavy in his ears, distancing him from the ache in his throat. Not with his cock filling and rising to the occasion, responding to the raw simplicity of Daniel's anger.

Daniel annoys him. Often. It's not arousing; it's a pain in the fucking ass. But Daniel angry with him, and finally doing something other than whine and nag, is shredding the barrier between what Jack wants and sanity like it's wet paper and mush.

Daniel could probably explain this to him, but Jack's fairly sure he's not going to ask him to.

And he's not going to let this carry on. They're at work, for fuck's sake, and they need to talk not fight.

He brings up his hand to push Daniel away, trusting, still, that that's all it will take, and the angry triumph in Daniel's eyes tells him he's making a mistake. Daniel wants that; more cake and beer for the pity-party he's throwing because Jack never lets Daniel sort out his own fuck-ups.

Fine. Let Daniel fix explaining away how he tripped and accidentally strangled Colonel Jack O'Neill USAF to death when he did it.

He turns passive with an effort of will, staring down into Daniel's flushed face, breathing easier than Daniel is, even though Jack's the one choking, spit drooling down his face, warm and wet. Daniel's breath is catching on the words he's stuttering out; words Jack can't hear, coming from a mouth he can't see, because the sparks and splashes of colour and dark in front of his eyes are hiding Daniel's face.

Then Daniel's hand relaxes and his thumb strokes across Jack's wet, open mouth and it's all sharp focus and clear again and Jack can breathe.

"Jack?" Daniel murmurs, his hand pinning Jack's shoulder to the wall, finding a nerve to grind against so Jack's mouth screws up tight, holding in a groan. Daniel's thumb pushes past the soft barrier of Jack's lips, breaking the split skin wider, taking the taste of blood deep inside Jack's mouth.

Jack turns his head away with a jerk and Daniel's thumb slips free and trails wetly across his cheek.

"Tell me to stop," Daniel says, making it sound a casual, reasonable request, although there's nothing reasonable about any of this that Jack can see. "_Make_ me stop."

More of a challenge there.

His hand travels across Jack's throat, where the bruises are going to show soon, and then strokes a path down Jack's chest. His heart is slowing to normal until Daniel's fingers crook and scrape lower over Jack's stomach the damp T-shirt clinging to it doing nothing to diminish the rake and drag of Daniel's nails. "You really should, you know." Daniel's gaze flicks down, mapping out a path for his hand, and then goes back to Jack's face.

Jack can breathe now and it's enough to hold back the rush of white noise in his head, but not enough to silence the sound he makes as Daniel traces the shape of Jack's cock through his sweat pants.

"Why are you letting me do this?" Daniel asks, his voice low and strong. "Why are you letting me touch you now? Here? Like this?"

"'Now'? Daniel, what the hell does that --?" Jack knows that's what he meant to say but Daniel's other hand, the one that's hurting him, pushes harder, and he grunts instead, feeling the wall tilt and straighten as the pain rocks him. Daniel's fingers stroke and pet Jack's cock, before curling around it as best they can, jerking him off with an awkward determination.

"Like this?" Daniel whispers and it means something different now, just like 'here' had. Typical fucking Daniel, cheating, making easy words tricky and twisted and dangerous.

Jack's free hand moves again and Daniel stops everything he's doing and waits to see where it will go.

Daniel's hand is cool under Jack's, fingers spread wide. Jack's mouth hangs open on a gasp as he screws the heel of his hand into the back of Daniel's where it rests against his shoulder, just, oh, yeah, just _there_.

The agony ripples and races from his shoulder down to his dick and he lets Daniel see all of it, the lust and the hurt, only holding back the sounds he wants to make and can't, not here. Daniel's mouth compresses in a tight line but he doesn't look away.

It's all happened fast. Rush, slam, fingers and pain, wham-bam, thank you, Daniel, and what would someone watching see, Jack wonders. Daniel's standing well back, his hand on Jack's shoulder, his other hand lost in the shadow of his body. Sight wouldn't tell you much, unless you were close, and you'd have to be close to hear them because they're speaking like lovers after sex, disconnected, inaudible fragments of voiced thoughts.

"Daniel," Jack says, his voice a laboured gasp of nothing. "You've got to tell me."

"Why should I have to?"

"Because it's what you _do_!"

Still not going to tell him to stop and he's not begging him to. Won't do that, not even for Daniel. Not when it's Daniel he's begging, anyway.

"Not this time, Jack."

Daniel shrugs free and steps back, breathing heavily as he rubs his hands, busy, clever hands, over his arms, huddling in on himself. He's shaking, but Jack doesn't think it's because he's cold.

"Then I don't know what I can do." Jack eyes him warily and lifts his hand to massage some life back into his shoulder. His cock's throbbing worse, but this is fucked-up enough without him coming while Daniel watches. Daniel's left him so close that it wouldn't take much more than a couple more hard, fast pumps. Hell, the way he feels, walking across the room might do the trick.

"What's with the whole --" Jack gestures between them, trying not to make it graphic. Daniel's face closes off even more and Jack sighs. "Never mind. Something else you want me to work out for myself, right?"

He gives Daniel a hopeful smile and gets a stare slathered in cool hostility back that snaps his good intentions in half.

"Daniel? Remember I told you to get the hell away from me? Now would be a good time to work on that." Jack frowns. "What did you come in here for, anyway?"

"You wanted my report," Daniel reminds him.

"Yeah? So?"

"Are you going to read it?"

"Don't I always?" Jack counters.

"No."

"How do you know?"

"I included three paragraphs detailing the life-cycle of a guppy in one last year and you never noticed."

"Never commented, Daniel," Jack says with a smirk. "Not the same thing. It was fascinating."

He's trying to keep it going, nudge Daniel back in a track they've worn deep and wide over the years, but it's like juggling snow.

"You'll want to read this one," Daniel says heading towards the door. "Trust me."

Jack glances down at an erection that's thankfully subsided and then rotates his shoulder gingerly. "Yeah. I'll get back to you on that one."

***

When Daniel's report appears on his desk Jack's not ready to read it. He's in a foul mood, low on sleep, jittery with caffeine. He hasn't seen more than the back of Daniel's head since their encounter in the gym the day before.

Carter's called in sick with a cold, which means she's finally taken some notice of him pointing out that spreading germs through the closed environment of the SGC and the universe in general will make her no friends. He misses her being serious and chirpy around the place. He'd send her some flowers, but hell, it's just a cold.

Teal'c, he's avoiding.

The slim folder's not bulked out by anything notebook-shaped but it's thicker than normal.

Jack picks it up, studies the cover intently and pointlessly, and then riffles through it. Words. Lots of them. Usually Daniel throws in a sketch or two...

He's four paragraphs in when he realises what Daniel's done.

***

He can't read it like this, Daniel's words, all twenty-two pages of them, turned grey and neat, typed and printed and dead, a fillet of bones through the tough dry meat of the report.

If he's going to read it, it'll be the source material, the original text. Daniel's taught him the importance of that, at least, grinning happily as he recounted a story about a man who'd followed his grandmother's recipe for vegetable soup for twenty years before finding the book she'd copied it from and realising it was for soap.

It hadn't been all that funny, but Jack had chuckled anyway, getting a kick from Daniel's glee at the punchline. His geek, eyes watering because he was laughing so hard, forcing out the words between snorted giggles. Something about serving it up for Sunday lunch and cleanliness being next to -- oh, it hadn't been funny, and it hadn't ever happened, Jack's sure it hadn't, and he wants that damn notebook and he's going to get it back off Daniel if he has to pry it from his lifeless hands.

Daniel's office is dark and quiet. Jack checks his watch and stops being surprised. It's late and Daniel's gone home.

Fine. Makes it easier.

Suspicion that this is a trap stirs when he gets to the darkened room and he leaves the light off, finding his way through the dimness to the shelf. It's empty. Well, it's got stuff on it, sure, but not what he needs. Jack shoves a statuette back and hears an ominous crack of stone hitting porcelain that he ignores.

By the time he turns away, his eyes can see more than shades of darkness and it doesn't matter because he knows where it is.

The lamp on Daniel's desk blinks on and illuminates a second copy of the report, presumably edited although Jack doesn't bother checking, with the notebook resting on top of it.

Jack scoops it up and slips it back in his pocket, angled away from the camera although he's not doing anything wrong.

Not yet.

Not until he takes classified material relating to an ongoing inquiry out of the mountain and home.

***

It's mildly annoying that he's this predictable and Daniel's this stubborn.

"Doesn't occur to him that I might have a good reason for not wanting to read it?" he says aloud, taking a right when he should've turned left. "Noooo, of course it doesn't. He gets something in his head and we all have to just play along or we get told you so'd to death when it turns out he's right."

The steering wheel jerks as he slams the heel of his hand against it but he's already compensating for it. Wouldn't want to get pulled over. Not tonight.

He finds somewhere to park that's far enough away to be discreet -- he really doesn't want his truck seen outside Daniel's place -- close enough that he won't get too wet in the light rain that's falling.

Daniel opens the door on the third knock, barefoot and sleepy, his short hair sticking up in tufts.

Vulnerable, even sweet-looking, wearing grey sweatpants and a regulation black T-shirt that's too big for him and torn at the collar.

"Jack? Fuck off until you've read it."

Yeah. Sweet as sugar candy.

Jack gets past him before Daniel can slam the door in his face, as he's clearly dying to do, and goes through to the kitchen to help himself to a beer.

It gets slapped out of his hand before he's had time to take more than a single, icy-sweet swallow. Waste of beer, and one hell of a mess, but the bottle doesn't break, just spins lazily to a halt, the beer still in it dribbling out until what's left won't reach the lip.

"Get out."

Jack tugs the notebook out of his pocket and waves it at him. "Why? Got my invitation right here."

"You haven't read --"

"You know, the only reason I'm going to read it is to find out why you think you can know that just by looking at me."

"It's not that," Daniel begins.

Jack shakes his head. "Daniel, I'm going to read it."

"Not here." Daniel sounds panicked which isn't as much of an improvement over vicious for some reason.

"Yes, here," Jack shouts at him, needing the noise because he's sick of whispering and being so fucking careful all the time. "But not yet. Daniel, I don't care what's in it, I care about you. What you went through."

"All in there, Jack," Daniel whispers, pointing at the notebook.

"Yeah, I'm sure it is," Jack says, putting the book away again. "Does it explain why you tried to kill me with kindness yesterday?"

Daniel pushes his glasses up in a gesture so automatic he doesn't know he's doing it and so familiar it takes Jack a moment to realise he's missed seeing him doing it.

"In a way," Daniel says cautiously. "I'm not sure it altogether explains why you let me, though."

"Yeah, about that --"

Daniel turns away, reaching for a tea towel to drop over the puddle of beer on the floor. "It doesn't matter."

Three words that always mean the exact opposite.

"You know, part of me wants to go along with that, especially as you're finally talking to me again, but I can't."

The bottle clinks as Daniel places it on the counter, an inch or two of beer left in it.

"I'm not talking to you. I'm yelling and swearing at you."

"I'll take that over you calling me Colonel any day of the week."

Daniel smiles, touching his fingertip to the bottle to catch a drop rolling slowly down the side. "I knew you'd hate that."

"Yeah, sure you did. You know me, end of story." Jack walks over to him, two steps, three, close enough to touch Daniel if he dares risk it. "You know me," he repeats. "Tell me anything I did on the planet that surprised you."

Daniel shakes his head. "Nothing."

"Yeah." Jack swallows. "Yesterday?"

Daniel turns, his arm brushing Jack's, and Jack sees the fleck of toothpaste caught in the crease of Daniel's lip and the place where Daniel's razor scratched his throat. Sees what he can have by reaching out and waits to be sure before he nods and lets Daniel kiss him.

It's over too soon, and it's awkward enough to have both of them exchanging wary glances, but Daniel doesn't pull away and Jack doesn't step back. They're standing close enough to be touching when they exhale, swaying together as if the spinning world is pushing them towards each other. The clumsy, hard press of Daniel's mouth against his has left Jack feeling on edge, half-cheated. Years of imagining this and not doing it, fantasising perfection nobly denied and fooling himself that Daniel really would know how to kiss him, what to do with his hands.

Like he had yesterday.

"Well, that was..."

Daniel's hand slips around the back of Jack's neck and this one's better; softer and wetter and Daniel's eyes slide closed when Jack finally puts his arms around him.

But they're still eying each other cautiously when they break to breathe.

Jack clears his throat, rubbing his hand up the inward curve of Daniel's back and noting the way Daniel tenses. Daniel's brittle in his arms, the fluid aggression of the day before lost in panic.

"Want to find a wall to slam me up against?"

Daniel's mouth quirks in a hesitant, rusty smile. "It did seem to -- you liked that?"

"I didn't not like it," Jacks answers obliquely.

"I wasn't expecting you to let me --" Daniel glances at Jack's shoulder, raising his eyebrows quizzically. It doesn't hurt much now but Jack's only got to touch the finger-marked skin to feel a suffocating wave of arousal. He hasn't tried to make sense of that reaction beyond knowing that it turned him on mostly because it was Daniel doing it. It's the part of his response that lies outside the connection with Daniel that's troubling him. He's too old for this much self-discovery crammed into so short a space of a time. "Why did you do that?"

Jack remembers his hand over Daniel's, shifting the placement of Daniel's fingers slightly then pushing hard --

"You didn't need any help with the other hand. You were doing just fine there. Apart from stopping just when I was about to come -- what?"

Jack replays what he just said and matches it against the change of expression on Daniel's face. They're still hugging which makes it all really bizarre but Jack's not going to be the first to let go.

"Sorry I'm not good at hurting you," Daniel says, fury rising and had it ever really gone away? "God, would it kill you to go a day without belittling me in some way?"

"You spoiled, sulky fucking brat," Jack says with feeling.

Daniel jerks free and folds his arms across his chest. "You're unbelievable, you know that?"

"Most people save that line for after I've fucked them," Jack says because he can't help it. They're fighting, and he doesn't play to lose, not ever.

"Why? Don't you tip them?"

It's so outrageously childish an insult, and therefore lacking in strength, that Jack can't hold back a splutter of laughter. "What's next, Daniel? Going to tell me I have cooties? Jesus."

"I can't talk to you." Daniel's hands come up, batting at the air in frustration at his inability to do what he does best.

Communicate ... Daniel, freed hands slipping across bark, face rapt and then horrified as the tree died ...

"Did you feel it?" Jack asks abruptly. "When I shot the tree?"

"The Lindess," Daniel corrects him automatically. His hands drop down to his sides and he looks away. "I don't remember much."

"Daniel." Jack's not letting him get away with that. Daniel remembered plenty when he was mouthing off to Hammond about genocide, reckless actions, and rescue missions that fucked up big-time, every time.

"No, really, I don't. I was so close to --"

"Becoming one of them?"

Daniel nods and then shrugs. "I felt the emptiness of the space where it had been. It didn't hurt in the way you mean. Just... something missing."

"A hole in the whole."

He's expecting that to get Daniel angry again, but Daniel considers it and just nods. It's the equivalent of a gold star in the circumstances.

"See?" Jack says. "We're talking. We're on a roll here."

There's a sidelong glance that says they're about to get stuck again and then Daniel walks away to sit down on the couch, sprawling out on it so that Jack's got nowhere to sit but on a chair a mile away or the floor.

He can't see himself at Daniel's feet somehow.

He takes off his coat and kicks off his shoes, hoping Daniel gets the message that he's not planning on leaving any time soon. Then he shoves Daniel's bare feet aside and sits down before Daniel has chance to regain lost territory. Daniel huffs and bends his legs so that his toes are digging into Jack's thigh, but doesn't kick Jack off, and Jack leans into the high, comfortable back of the couch and tries to relax.

"So."

"Mmm?"

Daniel sounds distracted. Jack turns his head to look at him. The room's lit by a couple of lamps, with shadows spilling out from the corners, turning some of Daniel's ornaments into freaky, creepy shapes that Jack doesn't want to look at closely. Daniel's scary enough right now with his maddening unpredictability. Four years of working out which way Daniel will jump, and making sure he's got something soft to land on when he trips and falls, and Jack feels lost again.

"Got something you want to say now I'm here?"

Not the kisses. Not how long Jack's wanted to do that to Daniel and held off. Something else. Something safe.

There's a deep breath from Daniel and then he says, "I wanted you to do a lot of things this last week or so, Jack, and I've been --"

"A pain in the ass about my failure to deliver?"

"I suppose that's a fair description."

"You betcha."

"Yes, well," Daniel licks his lips nervously, and sits up a little straighter, drawing his feet back so that they're not touching Jack. "One of them was read the notebook, because it, well, it would have saved time. I think."

"Huh?"

"It doesn't matter now. I wanted that, and I wanted you to apologise for what you did back on the planet --"

"Daniel --" Jack shoves his irritation away in favour of finishing this conversation without a fight.

"No, that doesn't matter either." Daniel's eyes are scanning Jack's face anxiously, his hands linked tightly on his bent knees. "You don't have to apologise, I suppose, just -- understand why what you did was a mistake and why I can't work with you until we get that sorted out."

"Daniel, so help me --"

"Jack -- the notebook; who besides Teal'c has read it?"

"Do you practice changing the subject like that?" Jack thinks about it, casually dropping his hand on top of Daniel's linked fingers and giving them a comforting squeeze. Daniel's gaze drops down and then up, meeting Jack's eyes meaningfully and Jack pulls his hand away. No touching? Okay. "I don't know. Teal'c took it to Hammond and told him he'd read it and there was nothing in it that anyone needed to know."

"That's not strictly true," Daniel says quietly.

"Yeah, well." Jack wishes Teal'c had lost the damned thing but it was too late now "Hammond's old school. Which means he took a copy to cover his ass, told Teal'c he'd do his best to keep it out of the official record, and said he wouldn't read it."

"Which means?"

"He read it." Jack grimaces apologetically. "He had to, Daniel. Any C.O. would have done. But he'll act like he didn't unless there was something in there that he has to deal with, and if there was, Teal'c would've said something. Don't worry about it. You can trust Hammond; when it comes to looking after his team, he's solid."

And he won't let anyone pass judgment on Daniel for going squirrelly when he thought he was about to die like that, Jack thinks.

"We're both on his team," Daniel says. He turns his head to look at Jack. "I'm not sure he can protect us both. Not when we're on opposite sides."

"We're on the same team, Daniel. Don't say that."

"Not now."

"Yes, now!" Jack gets up, needing to move. "Daniel, this inquiry -- no one but you is pushing for it. It has to happen, but it can be rubber-stamped in a few hours if you just --"

"People died on that planet," Daniel says, his voice low and determined. "Everyone died except me."

"The only ones I care about are the people we sent through the 'gate and they died, yes, but an inquiry isn't going to change that and you know it wasn't down to anyone screwing up." Jack rounds on him, desperate to get Daniel to see it, admit the truth. "You built a fire. That's all. On that one planet, that was a mistake, but how the hell were you supposed to know that?"

"I don't know," Daniel whispers.

"And you're pissed at me, and yeah, I'm getting to see why, but to do this --" Jack stares at him helplessly. "You couldn't have talked to me about it? You had to demand an investigation? Tell them I'd fucked-up and got Foster and Talbot killed when you know damn well that's a lie?"

"You think I did that out of spite?" Daniel says slowly. "That this is me getting back at you?"

"Isn't it?"

"You think that and you're still here, trying to fuck me?" Daniel's face screws up in revulsion. "Last chance at my ass before one of us gets thrown off the programme?"

"No! Daniel, that's just bullshit." Jack fights to keep the anger from his voice. "And I didn't come here for that or you'd be naked by now, because I don't think this is all one-way here."

He can see Daniel absorb that and there's a moment when he thinks they can sidestep this argument and start to rebuild whatever's left of their friendship now that they've both come close to admitting there's something between them. As close as it can get when it's something that's doomed, dangerous and going to get them both in so much fucking trouble --

He should have known Daniel wouldn't let go of his guilt that easily.

"I can't do this," Daniel says, standing up, and his voice is breaking, anger and frustration poking holes in it. "You killed them and you did it to save me, which makes it my fault, too, because I've had four years to get you to trust me, and I've failed."

Jack tries to interrupt, but Daniel's not listening. His hands are pushing back through his short hair and he's animated, flushed, pacing up and down and never getting close to Jack.

"You'll protect me, yes. Die for me, if you have to. For any of us. You'd have died trying to save Foster and Talbot because that was what you'd been sent to do, wasn't it? Rescue us?" He doesn't wait for Jack's nod. "Yes, you would. You're good at that kind of thing. And this time I didn't need you to save me, or them."

"You were about to become a _tree_, Daniel! I'd say you needed someone and it happened to be me."

"I was about to do something you couldn't! Become part of something so far beyond your comprehension that you were terrified by it. Easier to destroy it than to learn from it, isn't that right?"

"You asked me to kill you if that happened," Jack reminds him wearily. "Sorry if I chose you over the Lindess. Won't catch me doing that again, I promise. Next alien who wants to suck your brains out, I'll hand them a straw. Are we _done_ here?"

He wants to go home now. Change the bed so he isn't sleeping in sheets whose smell reminds him of Daniel, crawl into it and pass out. Reminds him because Daniel had been there in spirit as Jack jerked off, desperate for a release he'd been denied, free hand coming up to grind hard into his shoulder and brush lightly over his bruised neck.

Daniel had been dying in Jack's dreams all night. He can't rest easy on those sheets.

"I could have saved them," Daniel says. "And me. I was talking to the Lindess -- oh, not in any way you'd understand --"

"You know, you can be a condescending little shit at times."

"I don't mean -- it wasn't talking, that's all. We were -- it went deeper than that." Daniel's eyes are shining and he's trembling slightly. "And I was explaining, and it was seeing that we were different from the Shalin and I could hear Simon and Julia, they were _there_, they were part of it, and they weren't as frightened any more, they were calling to me --"

"Oh, for crying out loud," Jack says helplessly.

Daniel looks at him. "They weren't doing that any more. Or screaming. And the Lindess was giving them a choice. I think they could have reversed what was done -- they're so far beyond us, you have no idea -- but it's nothing we can use, so don't even ask -- and they were giving me a choice, too."

Daniel sighs, regretful and disconsolate. "And then you came."

It's so petulant and ungrateful that Jack's reduced to playground rhetoric. "Want me to say I'm sorry? Don't hold your breath."

"I want you to tell me why you didn't wait! I'd told you I had something to do --"

"And you thought that was enough?" Jack gapes at him. "You mumble something vague and take off without telling me where you're going and when I find you, you expect me to realise that you're _talking_ to the thing that's making you like -- look -- God, Daniel, it was hurting you! Spikes through your neck, through your hands, and you were changing, I was losing you --"

Words. Jack's not good at this but Daniel's so fucking stubborn Jack has to carry on, give him more.

"I'd do it again. You were dying and I'd do it again. Every fucking time. Testify that I cost you a shot at getting Talbot and Foster back if it's what you believe and not what you've fooled yourself into thinking; I don't care. You're here and that means I did my job."

"Your job is not to protect me!"

"No. It isn't. Doesn't mean I won't. You, Carter, Teal'c; all of you. Don't think you're special, Daniel, because I'd have done the same for them." Jack goes to Daniel, grabbing his arms and holding him so Daniel can't walk away. "I was ordered to rescue you, Daniel. Authorised to use whatever means necessary to get you back. You're important, Daniel. You don't seem to get that, and it's something I like about you mostly, but you are. You don't get a choice about becoming a tree. We need you human."

"I could have saved them, Jack. Maybe found some way of helping the Lindess, too."

"We'll go back," Jack promises recklessly, sure he can persuade Hammond it's needed. "Daniel, if you think there's still a chance they're alive --"

"No." Daniel shakes his head. "No chance."

"You can't know that," Jack says.

"I can." Daniel closes his eyes. "You killed a Lindess. They --" He opens his eyes. "They saw us as... disease, contagion after that. They destroyed Simon and Julia rather than risk -- I was so close."

"I didn't know," Jack says quietly. And he hadn't. He's gone over it in his head and he still can't see any way it could've gone down differently. "Daniel, you were -- you should have seen how you looked. Like a walking nightmare. And you were hurting and scared. When I found you by that tree you were minutes away from being gone and I couldn't let that happen."

"Would it have mattered that much if I had?" Daniel's voice is cool. "I annoy you, Jack. You tell me that all the time. I interfere with the mission, I complicate your life because you want me and you don't know what to do about it." He nods as Jack winces and carries on, his voice rising. "Yes, I'm going to talk about that, too. Tired of _not_ talking about it. I kept expecting you to make an opportunity so that we could discuss it and agree to -- oh, pretend, ignore it, fuck once and move on, whatever-- but I didn't even get that, did I? You just expected that I'd play along without even _asking_ me how I felt about it. I didn't even get that. Well, screw you." Daniel's yelling now, quivering with outrage. "Tell me what we did just now, Jack. In the kitchen. Tell me, or get the hell out of here."

It's easier than Jack expected it to be.

"We were kissing, Daniel. We kissed, dammit."

That's just starting to sink in. A deliberate kiss. Two. With nothing to excuse it, although 'heat of the moment' described it well enough.

"Thank you." Daniel collapses onto the couch again, strings cut, the anger discarded abruptly as if it was too heavy a burden and he's happy to be rid of it

Jack hesitates and then sits beside him, both of them moving into the same position as before, with Daniel's bare feet snug against Jack's thigh.

It's not all that comfortable so Jack slides his hand under Daniel's ankles and taps his hand against them. Daniel straightens his legs without comment and lets them rest in Jack's lap, his right heel three inches away from Jack's balls. Jack hopes that's accidental rather than tactical. He takes a slow breath and says, "So you want to talk about it?"

Jack gets a nod, but it's followed by a silence rather than a question. He wonders if Daniel feels as empty and light as he does, waiting to be filled with something new.

Daniel's ankles are warm and bony under Jack's hand and his toes curl satisfactorily when Jack strokes his thumb along a hollow of skin, carving out an 'mmm' from the quietness.

Feet aren't meant to be looked at closely. Daniel's, well-shaped enough, with a sprinkle of fair hair at the base of each toe, barely visible in the light, are starting to look alien and amusing the longer Jack stares.

"Wiggle your toes," Jack says idly, breaking the lull that's done a good job of smoothing the edges off his emotions.

Daniel obeys him, then gives a swift squirm that brings his heel closer to Jack's groin.

Giving him a narrow-eyed look and getting an innocent one back, Jack runs his finger along the top of the toes on Daniel's right foot, big toe to little, bumping down the steps and catching the pad of his finger on an uneven nail. Daniel spreads his toes reflexively and Jack tries, and fails, to get his finger between two toes.

"Jack? What are you doing?" Daniel says in his calm, reasonable voice, the one Jack sometimes thinks Daniel saves for him.

"You've got some fluff in there," Jack says. Giving up, he leans forward and blows hard on Daniel's foot, dislodging a green thread, probably from a towel as Daniel's feet smell mostly of soap. Mostly. "Got it."

"God, Jack!" Daniel lashes out, kicking and scrambling back like a cat startled from sleep.

"Hey!" Jack twists, kneeling up on the couch, and grabs hold of Daniel's legs just above the knees, staring at him in bewilderment. "What did I do?" He grins. "Are you ticklish?"

"A little," Daniel says, his voice starting off higher than normal and turning husky in the space of a syllable. "It's just -- don't do that, okay?"

Jack's brain catches up with his eyes. Daniel's lying sprawled on his back, legs spread and held open by Jack's hands, the loose T-shirt riding up to expose a strip of stomach and a point of hipbone. The soft material of his pants is blurring the shape of an erection Jack's finding it difficult to ignore.

"You know, you could write 'fuck me' on your forehead and it'd be wetting water," Jack mutters.

Daniel looks perplexed, then pleased, and does something that has him ranking as high as air on the necessary for life scale. Jack can't quite work out the details -- more skin on show, maybe and Daniel's lip's pinked up from being bitten, and shiny from being licked -- but what had been accidental is now purposeful, and it should make Daniel less attractive because he's playing Jack, but it doesn't.

It's _because _ Daniel's trying to seduce him, and doing a damn good job of it by anyone's standards, that Jack's hard. Too long thinking he was alone in the insanity of falling for someone on his team not to be pleased to be proved wrong.

Which doesn't make this less insane.

Slowly, and with great care, he removes his hands from Daniel's body and kneels back between Daniel's legs. The couch isn't wide enough for that, not really, and Daniel's foot slides off. He braces it on the floor, looking open and wanton, and yeah, maybe he's overdoing it with that not-very subtle tilt of his hips in invitation and challenge but Jack's dick's not inclined to take away points for it.

"Can we just --" Jack makes a time out signal with his hands and prays Daniel doesn't pout because that _would_ be overkill and he doesn't want anything to spoil this.

Daniel frowns and says, "Why?"

Good question.

"It's not going to solve anything if I fuck you through the couch, Daniel."

"It'll take care of my erection and yours and I was assuming after yesterday that it would be me who..." Daniel lets his words die away which Jack would put down to shyness if it wasn't for the way Daniel hooks one hand behind his head, turning the pale, tender skin of his inner arm towards Jack.

Not shy.

"I'll arm wrestle you for who goes on top." Jack reconsiders. "Maybe tossing a coin's fairer."

Daniel smiles, stares up at the ceiling, and brings his free hand to rest on his thigh, fingers drumming gently. "Heads I win, tails you lose?"

"Huh?"

"I can fuck you without having to move from this position," Daniel points out. "And you'd still be on top."

Images slam and collide with unspoken words in his mind and Jack feels heat rise and roll over him. His skin knows just where Daniel's hands would be if they fucked like that and the knowledge is almost enough for him to feel the firm, sure grip.

"Yeah, I would." His cock's hard enough to make talking an effort. This hard, it should be buried deep in something, even if it's only the draughty haven of his fist, with words not a requirement. And in company, like now, his mouth should be too busy to talk ... Jack shudders, shallow breaths keeping him from getting audible at the thought of what it'd be like to kiss Daniel's belly, lick it, drag his teeth over it and feel Daniel tense and writhe, the muscles hardening for Jack to trace with his finger and chase with his tongue.

His face must give him away because Daniel makes a small, pained sound, eager and impatient, before he stops fucking about with his audition for centrefold poses and props himself up on his elbows.

"And I wanted this, if you're wondering. The kissing and the fucking, although maybe the bed would be better. But not until you'd --"

"Read the notebook. Yeah, well I think that might have to wait and you've only got yourself to blame for that." Jack fingers the ragged tear at the neck of Daniel's T-shirt, the back of his knuckles brushing Daniel's collarbone. Another few washes and the rip will unravel far enough that Daniel will have to mend it or discard the shirt. "Anyone ever tell you that you're not that good at planning stuff? And if I ripped this off you, would you mind?"

"No, I think it's more that you have a natural talent for disrupting my plans," Daniel says. "And, yes, I would."

"Why?" Jack asks, picking idly at the tear. "Could get you a new one from stores."

"I could get my own new one, thank you. I like this one."

"It's not yours," Jack says. He reaches behind Daniel's neck and yanks at the loose material until he can read the label. "Size too big." He's starting to think -- "Daniel, is this mine? The one I snagged when we were climbing up that escarpment and they were throwing stones at us?"

Daniel stares at him, wide-eyed. "You think I'm wearing your old T-shirt to bed? Want to check under my pillow for a photo of you that I kiss before drifting off to sleep?"

"Okay, okay, no need to --" Jack's flustered now, feeling ridiculously put-out.

"For God's sake, Jack! It's mine. It got issued when stores were out of my size and when I got a replacement I brought it home because it seemed a waste to just throw it out. The collar got ripped in the laundry." Daniel glares at him. "And I sleep naked."

"Well, good for you!"

Daniel's mouth twitches. "You're upset, aren't you?"

"No." Jack lies. "You're not the sentimental kind."

"No, I'm not," Daniel agrees easily. "But you are."

"Can we make this something we never mention again?" Jack asks plaintively.

"That's getting to be a long list of off-limit topics." Daniel hesitates. "This -- _is_ it something we can do, Jack? Nothing's changed. In fact, this is a terrible time for you to even be here."

"Because of the inquiry?" Jack sighs. "Yeah, it is. And, no, we can't do it, but I think we're going to anyway."

"We don't have to," Daniel says quietly. "I'm not angry that we can't fuck; I understand the reasoning behind it, in part at least."

"It doesn't make any difference," Jack says. "Whether we --"

He stumbles over what comes next and gets a nudge from Daniel's heel. "Say it."

"_Make love_," Jack says, turning the words into a challenge. "Whether we do or not, I've still got a head full of stuff that could get me in worse trouble than I am now if people knew, and I'm still going on missions with you when I should've got you transferred the hell away from me months ago. Years." His hand tightens around Daniel's ankle. "I thought I was handling it but you had to go and almost die on me again, didn't you?"

"Sorry," Daniel murmurs. "I hadn't realised it was such an aphrodisiac."

Jack makes a lemon-sour face and Daniel has the grace to look repentant. "You've got this reputation for being so fucking nice, Daniel. Why don't you try living up to it?"

"I'm sorry." This time it sounds sincere. "I've been so angry with you since we got back; had so many fights with you in my head..."

"Are you angry now?" Jack pushes up the loose material of Daniel's sweat pants, fingers spread wide as he caresses Daniel's calf. Daniel's still hard, or hard again; Jack's not sure which and he doesn't care. Doesn't care that this might count as cheating to get the answer he wants either; Daniel deserves it after that crack.

"I can want to fuck you when I'm angry with you, Jack. I wouldn't read too much into this." Daniel sounds amused as he runs his fingers slowly over the solid promise of his erection, gasping slightly as his smile slips away, replaced by an inward look of concentration.

Years of fantasies about what Daniel will look like on the verge of climax get discarded as Jack watches him fight for control, his eyes darkening, half-closed, full lips parted.

"Been a while for you, has it? Anyone would do?"

"Save the fishing for when you're at your cabin."

Daniel slips off his glasses, reaching over his head to drop them on a side table. Jack gets an eyeful of skin again. It's skin he can be genuinely indifferent to when Daniel's showering beside him and they've got company, but flashed at him like this in brief, teasing flickers, it's torture.

"Answer the question, Daniel."

"Which one?"

"Are you still angry with me? For any of it?"

Daniel wriggles down a little, forcing Jack's hand higher up his leg. "Yes, but my capacity to forgive where you're concerned is fairly high. It has to be."

"Goes both ways, Doctor Jackson," Jack says.

Daniel makes an indistinct murmur and reaches for Jack's hand, pulling Jack down on top of him and then forcing Jack's hand to take a handful of his T-shirt.

"Take it out on this."

"Oh, you bet I will," Jack says. The angle's useless and the cotton's tougher than it looks, so he abandons the attempt to do it one-handed and sits up, straddling Daniel, which is distracting, and ripping the T-shirt from neck to hem with a flourish.

Daniel arches his eyebrows. "Feel better?"

Jack stares at Daniel's chest, feeling possessive about the skin he's revealed. "Kind of like Columbus."

"In what way?"

Jack rubs his finger across Daniel's lips until Daniel obligingly opens them, sucking at it with a swirl of his tongue that sends a shudder through Jack. He pulls his finger free, suffering an indignant scrape from Daniel's teeth as they snap closed, and draws a spit-damp 'X' on Daniel's chest with it.

"Claiming territory I've discovered," he says smugly.

"At least you didn't label it virgin territory," Daniel murmurs teasingly.

Jack shrugs, equally uncomfortable with the idea that Daniel is or isn't experienced when it comes to sleeping with a man.

"You're not going to ask, are you?"

"Don't ask, don't --"

"Finish that sentence and I'll close my borders," Daniel says, the joke failing to rob the words of their sharpness. "So fucking sick of hearing that."

"Sorry. No, I'm not going to ask. Or I wasn't." It occurs to him that maybe they should talk about some things, but he's unsure where to start. The closed-mouth kiss and the hand job with added kink don't mesh and he only knows that Daniel's going to have to be the one taking the lead because he sure as hell isn't ready for another fight about his over-protectiveness.

"I've done this before, I'm clean, I don't want to rush you but there are condoms and lube in my bedroom if we need them, and the rest is none of your business," Daniel says in a clipped rush that sounds a little rehearsed.

"Well, that was very --" Jack bends his head and licks the patch of skin he's been tormented by for the last hour. Clean skin. He wishes he'd caught Daniel before his shower, body sleeked with the residue of the day. " Informative. Ditto, by the way." He sits up and slides his hands inside the waistband of Daniel's sweat pants. "Up."

He waits until Daniel's naked, apart from the torn T-shirt, to take a good look at him, and discovers that when he thought he knew what Daniel looked like naked, he'd been wrong. He knows the shape of Daniel's hands and how his fingers crook around a pen; knows the lines of the back of his neck and the shape of his ears, curving tightly to meet his scalp. He can stare at them, un-remarked and safe, and so he's learned them by heart.

Everything else he's only been able to grab at, jigsaw-piece-jumbles of split-second glances that he's pieced together into patchwork into a paint-by-numbers Daniel to jerk off with.

This is better. No surprise there. He looks first, not at Daniel's face, or his cock, but at the skin he remembers being thickened and warped by the invading alien growth. There had been a place on Daniel's chest --

Nothing remains. The skin's smooth, the light tan interrupted by a freckle here and there, dusted with a scatter of hair low on Daniel's belly. By the time Jack's got that far down he can't miss the emphatic thrust of Daniel's cock and he doesn't try. He's close enough to smell the heady, ripe smell of arousal, trapped in the tight creases of skin, released as Daniel parts his legs as wide as he can.

But he has to look again before he touches, tastes, and it's worth it.

The ripped T-shirt's definitely coming off if Daniel turns onto his belly. Jack wants that long, solid stretch of skin exposed more than he wants the visceral clench of muscle in the pit of his stomach when he remembers tearing the shirt open. For now, though, with Daniel spread out on his back, the ragged T-shirt's the salt and lime that's making Jack's mouth prickle with saliva, soft and heavy against his tongue.

His body's waking up in a dozen different ways, stirring from enforced sleep, and hungry. The clothes he's wearing feel bulky, hampering him, but he can't spare the time to strip them off and Daniel's so ready --

There's a pale sheen across the head of Daniel's cock, leaking across the rumpled, retreating foreskin. Jack touches the tip of his tongue to it, tasting it curiously, feeling a sense-memory surge forward, clamouring to be recognised.

Daniel makes an inarticulate sound and grabs at him, one hand sliding through Jack's hair, the other, by chance, maybe, clutching at Jack's shoulder. "Jack!"

Jack rotates his shoulder gently into Daniel's grip and lets Daniel push his head down lower.

He never had thought that they'd make it off the couch to the bed.

Daniel's cock wedged far back in his mouth when Daniel's tongue hasn't done more than flirt with his lips should be disconcerting but Jack's getting used to the dichotomy that is Daniel and he negotiates a retreat with an admonishing slap on Daniel's flank.

"Gotta breathe, Daniel," he grumbles softly, his palm cushioned on the springy bush of hair around the base of Daniel's cock, thumb and fingers holding it steady.

"Which is why you have a nose," Daniel says snippily.

Jack bites him, teeth sinking far enough into flesh to leave white dents that fill and darken as he watches. "Got teeth, too."

Daniel rubs at his thigh with a thoughtful push-scrub of his fingers and doesn't comment. His hand stays there and Jack kisses it, moved by an impulse he can't explain, feeling the convex slipperiness of fingernails against his lips and mouthing the bent-up knuckles until they flatten and a single finger works its way past his teeth.

Jack allows the intrusion, thinking ahead and knowing it's going to be difficult to say 'no' to anything Daniel wants to do to or with him. Daniel's too curious not to stray past limits Jack drew in black, zigzagging wildly around what worked for him, but Jack's more worried about his own competitive nature taking him to places he doesn't really want to go. He pictures Daniel exploring a multitude of kinks with a thoughtful frown, lips pushed out in a contemplative pout, and chokes on ill-timed laughter.

Daniel's finger pauses and then hooks firmly in the corner of Jack's mouth, tugging it inexorably to the side.

"Suck me," he says, wiping his finger across Jack's cheek in a flickering caress.

"What?" Jack doesn't mind doing it -- _wants_ to do it -- but hearing Daniel tell him to is something else again.

"Suck my cock, so I can come," Daniel says with the clarity of the desperate. "Get on with it or get out of the way and let me --" His hand snakes down and Jack, after a stupefied second where he allows Daniel to get in a blurringly fast few strokes, growls and peels Daniel's hand away.

"I'm right _here_, Daniel ..."

Unbelievable. This is a man who can spend hours working on the exact meaning of one word and he's turned into a demanding, pushy, impatient --

Jack gives Daniel's dick one defiantly slow lick, dragging his tongue across and around, up and down, and then engulfs it in a rush that tears a muffled groan from Daniel. He squints up and sees Daniel's hand wedged between his teeth.

"Sound-track helps," he gets out between succulent mouthfuls and then he shuts up and Daniel gets noisy.

He's forgotten too much to make it as good as it could be, but he gets the impression that Daniel's in a mood to be forgiving about this, no matter how many other grudges he's still hugging close. Even a collision between incisor and cock doesn't get him anything but a whimper from Daniel.

There's no time to regain a level of expertise that, if Jack's honest about it, was never that high. He's done this enough that he knows swallowing beats spitting and his mouth will taste of come even after he's brushed his teeth. Not enough to be sure he'll be the best Daniel's had though, which he hates.

Daniel's hands are touching him now, light touches Jack guesses are supposed to reassure them both; I'm fine, you're doing fine, don't stop, oh God, tapped out in a code of gently tugged and twisted strands of hair and scribbled on skin over and over until Jack knows he'll still be marked in red tomorrow and his scratched shoulders and back will sting in the heated water he'll have to stand under, washing Daniel away.

By the time Daniel's panting, chanting out Jack's name on a rapidly rising note, his thumbs are hard points pressed into Jack's collarbone and the heel of one foot is scraping down the back of Jack's calf.

It's all confined and constricted by the couch; Daniel's half off it as it is, and Jack's slid sideways himself, one foot flat on the floor, his leg muscles screaming for a release that's going to have to wait on Daniel's.

Bed, Jack promises himself. Next time they do this on the bed.

He opens his eyes when he realises they're shut and sees the thicket of hair around Daniel's cock rushing up and receding, a trail of spit winding through it, silver-dark. He's got the squish and roll of Daniel's balls under the heel of his hand and that's all he's planning to do because suddenly this is too sudden and he's floundering and lost, the insistent beat of blood in his cock thrumming through him, disorientating him.

Daniel's hand slips to cup the back of Jack's neck, stroking it once and then clamping down as his body jerks and shudders.

Jack loves this and always knew that he would. Daniel. Daniel losing it, cock getting impossibly harder, spunk pulsing up and spurting out to swirl and fill Jack's mouth as he fights to swallow, his abused throat muscles protesting.

Like this, making sounds that aren't words in any language, Daniel's his, reduced to base level, genius mind wiped clean as his body rocks and squirms and clutches, helpless and strong.

When Daniel quiets down, Jack opens his mouth and laps at Daniel's cock as it glides past his lips, taking the taste of it deep and cleaning up the final leaking drops of come until Daniel sighs and shudders and murmurs his name.

By the time Jack's lying beside him, squashed and uncomfortable, both of them grunting as they try to accommodate themselves to the space, he's got a smile on his face that won't go away and an overpowering need to cuddle close that even the assault on his ribs from Daniel's elbow can't quench.

They settle down on their sides, Daniel wrapped around him with a tenacity that borders on ferocious until the kisses Jack's layering onto his hair and temple gentle him down and the hand that isn't trapped under Jack begins to roam.

"Jack?"

"Mmm?"

"Why are you still wearing clothes?"

"I don't know," Jack admits. "Never seemed like a good point to take them off."

Daniel's hand burrows between them, searching out Jack's erection, not forgotten, by Jack at least, but taking care of Daniel had come first.

"Now? Is now good?"

Jack pushes Daniel's face up so he can kiss him. "I can wait."

Daniel's tongue is warm and wet and stroking over Jack's a moment later. Third time lucky, or maybe Daniel's just better at kissing when he's relaxed. Jack's eyes close, only to snap open when Daniel pulls away an inch or two.

"Jack?"

"What?"

"Take off your clothes." Daniel starts to undo Jack's shirt one-handed, fumbling with the stiff buttons. "Now. Because I can't."

***

 

Jack eases out of Daniel's bed and stares down at him for a moment before starting to get dressed. Daniel stirs, one hand groping across the portion of bed Jack had fought for all night, because Daniel's not used to sharing, and then starfishes out and settles down again.

After finding his way around Daniel's bathroom in the dark Jack goes to the couch and flips on a lamp. It's five in the morning and he's tired enough that the room's wavering around him. Habit, not inclination, has woken him and he's resentful enough to feel like doing the unthinkable and crawling back in beside Daniel. First time he's slept properly in weeks, dammit...

Daniel's writing spider-dances in front of his eyes and he blinks, focuses, and starts to read the notebook, skipping over two pages of notes made before Daniel was captured because he's mentioning dead people all over the place and it makes Jack feel vaguely uncomfortable.

Daniel's used a pencil to write. Figures. He always has one tucked in his pocket. It starts out needle-sharp, the way he likes them; pointed enough that the first time he uses it there's always a little explosion of graphite, a splutter of lead he has to blow off the page. Jack's watched Daniel's lips purse up to do that more times than he can remember. By halfway through the notebook the words are thick and soft on the page, bigger than before, because written small Daniel wouldn't have been able to make them legible.

It looks like a child's writing until Daniel chews and gnaws away enough of the wood to get a workable point again.

_I've got a splinter of wood stuck between my teeth. It's shredding my tongue because I can't stop poking at it and now my gum's bleeding too. I want to tell someone about that but I can't because Alice isn't listening to me anymore. She's got her back turned and I hate myself for being grateful that I can't see her face. I didn't know anyone could scream that long or how much worse it would sound now her voice has broken. She should stop trying to scream now. I wish she would stop. Her fingers are bleeding and so is her neck. _

I can't reach her. She's too far away to touch. The cages are just big enough for that.

The Stargate is buried now. I'd forgotten how big a hole you have to dig to do that. Why are they that big, anyway? Why not much bigger, or much smaller? Who chose the size? Must ask Sam. There's probably a scientific reason involving an equation and if Jack's listening I'll never get to hear the end of it.

Is it crawling deeper inside her the more it tightens?

I can't help her. She won't come over to me now. I did try to get it off. I did.

Good time to rescue us. Any time now, guys. Jack?

The 'gate's buried. I worked as slowly as I could but it didn't make a difference.

They didn't come.

 

Jack wouldn't believe I'd helped kill a child. It's the truth, but I know he wouldn't believe it. That's not why he didn't come in time. I know it isn't.

"Oh, you would try and make me feel guilty, wouldn't you?" Jack mutters. "I came as fast as I could and you know it."

Daniel had known it. _Had_ to have known it.

He skims over Daniel's laboriously detailed account of his findings at the site, working under hostile eyes. Heard about that already. The excitement Daniel had felt at his discovery, unsullied by what he was enduring, shines through until the night Alice dies. Jack reads that page, scrawled in the dark by the look of the uphill, criss-crossing words and closes his eyes wishing he hadn't seen the letter Hammond had sent to her husband.

_ Your wife died (Sacer, sorry, so sorry, please, we're sorry, take it off her, take) in performance of her duties (can't look away, mustn't, must watch, she has to see me watching, can't just be him, don't want her to see him as she dies) and was a credit to her country and her profession (eyes not right, not her eyes, how long have they not been her eyes oh God she's been in here with me for days). You can be proud of the contribution she made (blood pouring from her neck, across the ground, towards me, coming in here, soak in, go into the earth, please, can't sleep in her blood, smell her blood) and Doctor Jackson wishes me to convey his sincere regret for your loss._

(That was her neck breaking. Quiet now. Quiet.).

Jack turns the page fast enough that it tears, the dry rustle like leaves shaken by the wind, and finds Daniel lucid again because he's been given water and food for the first time in days and Alice's body has been taken away.

It's the little things that make a difference.

_I told him about the brelenith and he smiled and touched me with his hand, touched my face. He's never done that before, always been careful to avoid his skin on mine. I disgust him. His eyes tell me how loathsome I am, and I won't believe it because I'm not, but it's getting hard to remember that anyone ever looked at me and liked what they saw. _

I thought it was a good sign; that he was finally seeing me as something more than a monster.

I smiled back, wishing his hand wasn't cupping my face like that because it's what Jack did that time I was dying and Sacer's hand on me, not Jack's, felt wrong. I smiled.

Shouldn't have done that, shouldn't.

He always hurts me for longer if I try and communicate. That time I said his name over and over with every kick I thought he was going to kill me but I couldn't stop doing it.

Calling out a name on my knees, not daring to lift my head. It must have looked like praying, but there are no gods left on this plane to save or damn me. Missing in action, just like me.

I smiled and he put the collar on me and stayed to watch for a while as it began to tighten.

I can feel the Lindess in my head. It's in my head_. I saw the collar on Alice and I know what it must look like where it goes in, a hole, a big round hole and I'm leaking out of it. _

I can't get it off and it's shrinking as it dries. I used water to keep it wet, used spit and piss and if I could cry I'd have tried that, but it didn't work. It's bleeding dry into me and I can feel it changing me.

I'm not me anymore. I don't know how I know that, but I do. I'm more, not less, but I'm lost, chopped up and spread thin.

Sacer sits outside the cage watching me and he doesn't touch me now. I'm suffering enough even for him and there's this terrible envy in his eyes that I don't understand because he'll have this soon himself. He won't tell me much but I know they've started to make the rings.

I know a lot about Sacer, this world, now. I'm connected. Like a blind, deaf man watching a television connected, but now and then I get something, a flash, a gestalt... I've got a jack in my head. Two. A jack and a Jack. That's a play on words. My favourite toy.

Jack. Sam. Teal'c. Short words. They don't take up much space on the page but symbols don't have to. Names are shorthand for a person, all that they are. I can think their names, or write them, and have them there, just for a moment. I fall asleep reciting names of people I haven't thought about for years, remembering them, and always coming back to those three.

I'm writing this and I don't know what it's for. I know I don't have much longer before I won't be able to. My hands hurt. Sacer stamped on one a while back and I think he broke a bone but that's not why it's hurting. Dark and moving, under the skin. I can see it.

Besides, there aren't many pages left.

It's either the last of my journals, in which case it's just for me, like all the others, or it's something I'm writing hoping that it'll be found and one day my friends will get to read this, and I can leave them a dignified, well-thought out, tear jerker of a message saying goodbye and thank you for coming, even if it was too late.

But if I thought there was even a chance of that, it would mean that I'd start to listen for Jack's voice again, just in case he was early, although it's too late to be on time, and I've made myself stop doing that because it hurts too much when he doesn't appear. The countdown ended when the collar went on. I can't be saved now and I'm glad they won't have to watch me change.

I saw Simon change. Sam would have cried, I think, without shame or reserve. I didn't. I wish I had in a way, because it was worth tears, but it seemed like a weakness and I was still stupid enough to think that mattered, that Sacer would see how noble humans were, how brave, if I didn't, and maybe have some mercy.

Stupid of me.

For all I know, Shalin don't even have tear ducts.

I can't believe I care what people think about me when I'm dead enough to censor myself. That's just so fucking military and God knows I've had enough of that the last few years. Told when to wake up, what to wear, Jack getting annoyed when I don't show up for lunch with them, pushed through the 'gate and dragged back when I've only just started -- This is the first time I've actually been able to finish a translation on site instead of working from photos.

So, you're not reading this, okay? Teal'c, turn your head away, Sam, look down, Jack pretend my writing's beyond you. You're not seeing this.

I love you all.

You know I do.

I'd die for you. "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."

I never thought I would be asked to. Never had a lot of friends. Never thought I had a scrap of hero in me. I still don't. Dying for friends isn't hard. I'd only be a hero if I died to save Sacer.

Although I can hear Jack's voice snarling at me that I'd be a Grade-A idiot if I did that. It's funny how he'll appear in my head to yell at me, but never comes when I'm thinking about how much I wish I'd told him what he means to me. You'd think that would have him hotfooting over to bawl me out for being mushy.

Jack blinks and his gaze flicks warily, eagerly up to the top of the facing page. Daniel starts talking about Teal'c on the first line.

Not that Jack minds that of course. Teal'c's a hell of a guy. He deserves a page to himself, and although Jack doesn't feel comfortable reading this part in detail, he's glad to see Daniel make it pretty damn clear that when it comes to killing Sha're goes, he and Teal'c are good. Which goes a long way toward explaining Teal'c's mother cat attitude in the gym.

And he's going to make sure Carter reads what Daniel has to say about her because she'll get pink and flustered and smile and he loves her when she loses her composure like that. Daniel's got this knack of dealing out these sweet, heartfelt compliments --

Jack turns the page and it's blank.

He turns back, and yes, Daniel had stopped with an inch of paper to spare and the writing's getting wobbly as he tells Sam how much she's meant to him, but he'd finished because there's a period there after he's written 'goodbye Sam', which means Jack isn't going to find out what Daniel said about him.

Ever.

Because Daniel can tell him now, if Jack asks him to, but he's not dying, they've crossed a line, and it won't be the same.

On the plus side, the notebook's safe. Jack realises that he'd half been expecting Daniel to say that he loved him, which he did, but he said it about Teal'c and Sam, too, which makes it the kind of love you're allowed to put a name on and Hammond can't do much about that and wouldn't want to.

Jack flips the pages a final time and then puts the notebook down on the coffee table feeling a pang of disappointment.

He's not sure what the big deal was about him reading it.

Put like that, it sounds awful. He's just read about Daniel getting kicked half to death on a daily basis by someone Jack didn't hurt half enough when he killed him. Daniel scared, guilty and grieving and sharing it with nothing but a blank-paged book. Daniel in agony, determined not to break and feeling himself fade instead, bit by bit, sucked into an alien consciousness.

Daniel so fucking certain they'd come and so fucking certain it was too late to save him.

Jack pushes the notebook across the table so that it slides a little way and stops.

Yeah. Bad. Terrible, all of it.

Deep down there's an anger smouldering that Daniel went through all that, but they're all dead, every one of them who hurt him, and Jack's learned not to hold grudges past the grave.

He's got Daniel back and no matter where they take it from here -- and that's something he's going to have to think about; they both are -- he's got no regrets about what they did last night.

It'd been what they needed to do to heal. Fight and fuck and fall asleep holding on tight. Jack's ass is tender where it doesn't show but he'll know about it all day and he's got enough bruises darkening his skin to make him hope they don't get sent off-world for a while, because Fraiser's going to know he didn't get them playing with the Goa'uld. Doesn't matter.

"Morning, Jack."

He looks up to see Daniel huddled into a dark blue robe, bare legs sticking out, leaning against the wall as if it's a mattress.

"Daniel."

He's smiling. Can't help it. Daniel's hair's ruffled, his chin's shaded with stubble, and his eyes are heavy, but he's got a knowing, mischievous smile on his face, and he's doing nothing to hide the fact that he's hard under a layer of towelling.

Jack could stand up, walk over, and have Daniel's cock warm in his hand a moment later. He flexes his fingers, almost feeling the quiver and jerk of solid flesh between them.

God, he _could_. Could do anything he's dreamed of doing, and he's thought up plenty, and get nothing from Daniel that sounds remotely like a protest.

"What would you do if I said I wanted to fuck you against that wall?" Jack asks, taking advantage of the surreal quality of the moment, with the room lit by the pale light of early morning and the pool of lamplight beside him, day meeting night.

Daniel turns his head slowly, as languidly as he'd rolled it against the pillow as Jack mouthed and bit gently down his body. He shrugs, the movement enough to work the loosely tied belt looser, so that his robe falls open across his chest and below his waist.

Oh, yeah. Hard. His cock's at the point where it needs a touch or two to coax it thicker, longer, but it's there on display and Jack's admiring it just like Daniel wants him to.

Daniel pats the wall with his hand as if testing it for suitability, long fingers spreading wide. He brings up his other hand and turns to fully face the wall, sliding his hands up and out until they're level with his head. His robe's dropped down enough to bare his shoulders and the upper curves of his back and it's cutting into his arms now. Jack can see the furrow the robe's carving across muscled skin. The belt's hanging down, swaying as Daniel moves his feet wider and then takes a deliberate step back, arching his spine so the flat, hidden curve of his ass becomes a well-defined shape beneath the robe.

Daniel leans forward and rests his forehead against the wall, waiting.

"This," he murmurs, just in case Jack hasn't got the message.

"Hypothetical question," Jack says, hearing the words catch in a dry throat.

"Isn't it a little early in the morning for those?"

Jack stands up and sees the anticipatory shiver go through Daniel, hears the soft, breathy moan he remembers from last night, with Daniel all but chewing his ear off as Jack's fingers pushed into him with a deliberation designed to hide his nervousness.

"Daniel --" He puts his hand on Daniel's bare shoulder, intending to turn him, kiss him, turn him down. He's tired; the finger-brushing with Daniel's toothpaste hasn't done much to take care of the thick, sticky taste of sleep in his mouth and he needs to get out of here, go home and change.

He's never had to say much to make Daniel understand him. Daniel sighs and his head bends lower, in defeat, not invitation. Jack strokes the back of Daniel's neck and curls his fingers through Daniel's right hand, easing it away from the wall.

"I'm an idiot," Jack whispers into Daniel's hair. "I shouldn't have said that."

"Why did you?" Daniel twists, lying back against the wall, his hands coming up to hold onto Jack's arms. "If you didn't want to, why ask?"

"Because I needed to know?"

Daniel frowns. "You couldn't have asked if I'd had second thoughts in a less ambiguous way?"

"This early in the morning?"

"Point taken." Daniel glances down, gives a disconsolate grumbling noise, and pushes Jack away so that he can fasten his robe. "Breakfast? And don't ask if I'm on the menu, because I'm only prepared to humiliate myself once a day, and that was it."

Jack grabs at his arm. "Daniel -- the only one looking like an idiot in this room is me. And when the first cup of coffee kicks in, wait for me to start crying into it for missing out on the chance to, uh ..."

"Nail my delectable ass?"

"It is, but that's not how I'd have put it." Jack considers. "Close enough, though."

Daniel brushes a kiss across his cheek that Jack chooses to interpret as forgiving, and heads toward the kitchen. Halfway he stops and glances down at the coffee table then picks up the notebook, weighing it in his hand.

"I read it," Jack says.

Daniel's tongue swipes across his lips. "Okay. And?"

Awkward. Jack swallows and walks over to him, rubbing his hand along Daniel's arm. "I don't know what to say, Daniel. It's the last time I let you go off-planet without us there to watch your six, let's put it that way."

He says it, knowing it's just words. Daniel won't let what happened stop him and if Hammond thinks there's even a chance Daniel's not up to dealing with everything the universe has to throw at him he'll be grounded, not baby-sat.

Daniel rolls his eyes. "Jack."

"Okay, okay." Jack rubs at his face. "I hated reading it but at least I know now and that's better than what I was imagining."

"If you were imagining worse than that, don't share," Daniel says, wincing.

"No, it's just -- I saw you, Daniel and nothing in there comes close to finding you like that, in that fucking cage --" Jack's voice cracks and he takes a deep, shuddering breath. "Okay, tell me again why we're doing all this before breakfast?"

Daniel makes a soft, impatient sound. "We don't have many chances to talk like this. I'm not letting your empty stomach stop me."

"Well, you should," Jack tells him. "I get testy when my blood-sugar's low."

Daniel closes his eyes.

"What language are you counting to ten in this time?" Jack asks interestedly.

"Greek," Daniel says without opening his eyes. "I go alphabetically. Goa'uld was Monday."

"And why are you counting, just so we're on the same..." Jack realises that he hasn't picked the best figure of speech and shuts up.

"You read it and you don't want to ask me about anything?" Daniel opens his eyes and stares at Jack.

"You were, ah, pretty out of it in places..." Jack hedges. He's lost here. He can't whine that Daniel didn't give him a page or two to feel good about, not when Daniel had most likely been saving him until last, and then just got to the point where he couldn't hold it together any more. Besides, it's good that he didn't in some ways. The thought of what Daniel might have written about him, freed from restraints that, judging by his outburst the night before had been chafing, is scary.

"Yes, I was," Daniel says, nodding. "I think Sacer was drugging me until he realised it was affecting my translation work. The way I reacted to Alice's death..." Daniel's face closes down. "It didn't seem real and I kept yelling at her to shut up. I just -- I couldn't stand it."

"Hey," Jack says, pulling Daniel close and tightening his grip when Daniel stiffens. "No, dammit; let me. I can fuck you, but I can't hug you? Give me a break."

"I'm not going to sob all over your shoulder, Jack," Daniel says. "It's --"

"Too early?"

"Too late." Daniel's arms wrap around Jack, squeezing him hard. "I had a nice, private breakdown at the weekend. Cried, screamed, broke stuff, got drunk."

"Didn't do you much good," Jack says. "You came back wound even tighter."

"Maybe I needed you to finish the job," Daniel says. He waves his hand around for a moment and then puts it back on Jack's ass. "See? Unwound."

"Glad to be able to help."

Daniel nuzzles into Jack's neck, bites it hard enough to draw a yelp, and moves away. "You didn't answer my question."

"What?" Jack fights back a yawn, wishing Daniel would make coffee because he's going to have to go in about ten minutes and he's in serious danger of falling asleep at the first red light.

Daniel stares at him, shakes his head and goes to the kitchen.

Coffee. Thank God.

"Good bye, Jack," Daniel calls out. "See you later."

Jack sighs, finds his coat and shoes, and lets himself out without pushing his luck.

He's too old for guessing games but he takes the notebook with him anyway. Maybe he missed something...

He's in the shower at home, reaching back to finger the swollen skin around his asshole, with a wince at the sting of the soap followed by a tingle of pure lust he doesn't have time to deal with, when he finally gets it.

 

***

"You look like hell, Jack."

"Why thank you, sir. I was just going to remark on how well you were looking."

Hammond shakes his head, the glimmer of an indulgent smile showing.

"Well?"

"Sir?"

The smile vanishes and Hammond's expression hardens.

"Don't play games with me, Colonel. I need to know if the situation between you and Doctor Jackson has been resolved."

"Yes, sir."

"Amicably?"

Jack thinks of anything that isn't Daniel's cock pushing into his ass, inch-by-inch, moan by moan. With Hammond a few feet away, it's easier than he expects. "Oh, I think that's a fair description."

"And the inquiry?"

"I just spoke to him in his office. Daniel's willing to play ball on that, sir. Let you go with stress following his ordeal as a reason for his initial verbal report." Jack drops a folder on the desk. "I think this sets the record straight, General."

Hammond doesn't reach out for it. "You understand that I'm in a difficult position here, Colonel."

"No, sir." Jack focuses on the wall behind Hammond's chair. "The rescue mission succeeded as well as it could, given the unusual circumstances, and Doctor Jackson's made a full recovery. I'm not aware of anything ongoing that would present a problem when it comes to SG-1 going back in the field. We're solid, sir. Ready to go."

"Off the record?"

"Sir?"

"You're happy to carry on working with Doctor Jackson? You trust him? That was one hell of an experience he went through and it's only been a few weeks."

Jack lets himself meet Hammond's gaze, his face relaxed and open.

"As happy as I have been since he joined the team, sir. Daniel's tough. He's also a pain in the ass from time to time but you know as well as I do that we need him."

Hammons nods, mouth pursed thoughtfully.

"He's a good man to have at your back." Jack considers that and adds, "For a civilian."

Never hurts to remind them of that.

"He is, Colonel. No argument there. I'd hate to lose either of you from the team. Glad I won't have to. Dismissed."

Lying to Hammond always makes Jack feel vaguely guilty.

He's glad he didn't have to today.

Much.

And now he's thinking back to Daniel in his office and wondering if there was something he could've said better --

***

"You know, a clue would've been nice."

Daniel looks up as Jack walks into his office and then grins as Jack takes the notebook out of his pocket. "Twenty-two pages? You needed more of a clue than the one you gave yourself?"

Twenty-two pages and the cover said there were twenty-six. Jack supposed in some people's eyes that would count as a hint.

"You could've torn them out to wipe your ass with, Daniel!"

"On a planet with that many trees?"

Jack fingers the staples through the notebook. He can tell now that the tiny, thin strips of metal have been bent back and then squeezed closed again but he doubts anyone will ever think to look closely at it.

"Four pages about me?"

"Mmm."

"Three more than Teal'c and Sam got."

That gets him an eye-roll. "It wasn't a contest. And most of it was me yelling at you for never letting me tell you what was on page four."

"Which was?"

"Sheer filth, I'm afraid. I have an active imagination. Possibly a paragraph about the photograph under my pillow. And you had a day to read it before Teal'c asked for it back to copy." Daniel's mouth twitches. "And edit."

"Yeah, well, I was busy." Jack glares at him. "You were in a bad way and if you think I was going to sit around reading when you were hooked up to every machine Janet's got --"

"Well, that was your chance."

"So you're not going to tell me what it said?" Jack asks incredulously.

"I just did."

"In detail?"

"No." Daniel's gaze meets his. "But I can show you sometime."

"Not here," Jack says, knowing he doesn't need to say more than that.

Daniel nods. "Never here," he agrees. "But that still leaves a lot of places."

Yes. It does.

"When did Teal'c tell you? And why didn't he tell _me_?"

"He didn't think it was any of his business and he assumed I'd say something eventually. And he told me yesterday." Daniel stares at nothing. "When he realised if he didn't tell me that you'd never had a chance to read it --"

"Oh, so you admit that!"

"-- things would just keep getting worse between us."

"You thought I'd read it and still wasn't going to say anything? Daniel, you have to know I wouldn't have done that to you."

The wheels of Daniel's chair scrape across the floor as he pushes away from his desk, "To be honest? I didn't know what the hell was going on and not being able to ask anyone was driving me crazy. I could see the notebook in your pocket, but no one was mentioning the fact that Doctor Jackson had some interesting ideas about what he'd like to do to Colonel O'Neill when they were both naked, which was confusing." Daniel shrugs. "And I had more than that to be angry about. It was just the --"

"Icing on the cake? Final straw?"

"If you like." Daniel tidies up some papers and then shoves them aside. "I wasn't being fair. I was angry with you for reading it and not saying anything, then when you gave it back and I realised you hadn't read it, that was even worse -- then I saw the pages had been taken out and I -"

"Came to the gym looking for me."

"Yes."

"So when you found out it was Teal'c, not me, you --?" Jack lets that one hang in the air.

"I said thank you," Daniel tells him. Jack gets a glint of blue eyes as Daniel glances up at him. "What do you think I did?"

"Let's not go there."

There's a faint flush on Daniel's face as if he just has. "I've got something for you."

Jack takes the folder from Daniel and lifts his eyebrows inquiringly.

"It's my final mission report. The one Hammond wants to see."

"He's not asking you to cover anything up, Daniel."

"I know. I wouldn't."

No. Daniel wouldn't.

"It's just better this way."

Oh, yes, it is.

Jack hesitates and then nods, tucking it under his arm.

"Got to go," Jack says. "See you at lunch?"

Daniel gives the stack of paperwork on his desk a longing glance and Jack rolls his eyes. "Lunch, Daniel. Or I'll come and get you and drag your skinny butt down there."

It's a test of sorts, of both of them, because he says that, or something like it, to Daniel at least once a week and he has to know if he still can.

Daniel opens a book and starts to read, not even bothering to look at Jack. "And I'll spit in your Jello when you're not looking if you do. I'll eat when I'm hungry, not when you are."

Good enough.

Maybe they can do this.

Maybe.

***

 

The next mission is to a desert world, the one after that to a wilderness of marsh with non-stop rain. It's a month before they step out into a clearing surrounded by trees, drenched in sunlight and the smell of the local version of pine fresh.

Jack watches Daniel, his gaze colliding with Sam's and Teal'c's. There's a silence, tense and anticipatory, and then Daniel turns and smiles at them. "Hey. It's not raining."

Teal'c glances up at a pristine blue sky. "Indeed it is not."

"Makes a change," Sam says.

Jack pushes his sunglasses into place. "Less chatter, kids. Move out. And, Daniel?"

"Yes, Jack?"

"Stay human. That's an order."

As he heads for the tree line he hears Sam murmur, "Do you think you could get the colonel to stop saying that on every mission? Because it's giving me the creeps."

Jack gives a fallen branch a suspicious look, a swift kick and another look, and walks on.

It needs saying. This is Daniel they're talking about.


End file.
